


strangers and sunshine (you make my grass clippings green)

by afellowofyellow



Series: the stars and the sun [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crushes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear of Death, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan-centric, Light Angst, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, OT7 NCT Dream, One-Sided Relationship, Sequel, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Love, jeno's got no lover :(, platonic chenji - Freeform, tho multiple kisses :3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24687532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afellowofyellow/pseuds/afellowofyellow
Summary: Donghyuck Lee had long since grown used to the late night visits a certain dark haired boy seemed inclined to consistently pay. He’d sneak the elder in, nestle himself into the bed, and await the lanky arms that would wrap around his waist and the hot breath that would swirl over the nape of his neck, goosebumps rising over the flesh.What he hadn't grown accustomed to was the sudden change that would accompany them.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Series: the stars and the sun [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1784914
Comments: 15
Kudos: 63





	1. summer smells of grass clippings

**Author's Note:**

> this is a sequel to [the stars and a pocket full of cherry wrappers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24182050/chapters/59161630) but it's written so it can read as a stand alone :)
> 
> there's another playlist too hehe (*´ω｀*)  
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2zX1gjpKKHCgFxicB7vRqM?si=6nySKiWIQpmYeMlOLZjfog)

i.

Donghyuck Lee had long since grown used to the late night visits a certain dark haired boy seemed inclined to consistently pay. He’d sneak the elder in, nestle himself into the bed, and await the lanky arms that would wrap around his waist and the hot breath that would swirl over the nape of his neck, goosebumps rising over the flesh.

It was a routine Donghyuck had found himself grow accustomed to, the normalcy of their intimacy causing discomfort to lace him with the emotions that swirled throughout his gut in the company of the elder on such nights. In other rare times as the elder would remain away, never a text to heed warning of his absence, Donghyuck found confusion and anxiety would stir his stomach.

Occasionally, Mark would stumble up the stairs behind the shorter only to collapse onto his floor, his breath reeking with the stench of alcohol and his actions gangly, words slurred. Donghyuck found it in himself not to mind – to ignore the anguish that that tore his worries and the emotions that stirred within his chest. He’d allow the other to rest on the rough carpet and wake him the following morning with Advil and a glass of water, rushing him down the stairs in a hush with the dark of dawn blooming over the house as the muffle of sleep began to drift away with the rousing of his family.

Thus, when a rapping of pebbles startled over the thick glass of his window, Donghyuck rose calmly from the comforter that wrapped in a nest around him. It was uncommon for the elder to arrive without a phone call or text, a courtesy to the boy who’d on occasion drift off with the grasps of sleep and remain unable to allow the other in, though in Donghyuck’s mind it was blatantly clear it would be no one else.

Donghyuck stood, his back popping with the raising of his limbs over his head, and flicked on the lamp that lay over the stool beside his bedframe. His room became illuminated drastically more, the small cord of string lights having done little to chase away the shadows of late night. The hazel haired boy brushed the tips of his fingers across the bangs that hung into his view, flicking them across his forehead.

Donghyuck pressed his fingers between the slots of his blinds, drawn down against the view of those passing by with the naked trees of winter. He quirked his brow at the small form that cowered in the wintry cold, the boy lightened solely by the distant lamp that lay adjacent to the small strip of sidewalk leading to his porch.

He yawned and grappled across the mussed sheets of his bed for his phone, clearing the browser he’d been on and opening his messages. They were blank and ordinary. Cracking his door open with a wince toward the groan of its hinges and stumbling through the dark hallway, the boy typed rapidly over his keyboard. The stairs whined with the weight of Donghyuck’s footsteps, calling desperately into the quiet of drowse, and Donghyuck furrowed his brow at the lack of response that followed his inquiry.

Mark wasn’t answering.

Donghyuck settled into the foyer and peered into the glowing silver of the snowy night, his stomach tightening with nerves. A small head of black hair greeted him. Donghyuck swung the door open in confusion and stepped into the icy chill.

The younger studied the boy before him, curling his arm around the other against the frigid air. He was slumped inward, his expression drowsy and worn. A thin t-shirt billowed in the winter gale, whipping against his arms, notably reddened even in the dark of night. Donghyuck glanced over the wet hair, matted to the sides of his face and spewed over his pale cheekbones, and met the glazed stare of the other.

“Renjun?” the boy on the porch tremored, his arms limp at his sides and eyelids drooping. Donghyuck glanced down the street, scanning as if expecting to see a stumbling Mark that he’d whisk away as per routine. He found none and deflated – in relief or sorrow, he was unsure. “I half expected someone else,” he muttered, flicking his attention back to Renjun.

The elder glanced away with the pursuit of questions that sprung from Donghyuck’s lips, nerves ebbing at him with the thought of potential overlap – of Mark’s expected arrival bringing further confusion to Renjun’s unexpected.

Donghyuck didn’t feel up to an explanation that he himself was unsure of.

The elder shifted and spoke to the puzzled Donghyuck, his hands fiddling and descending into his pockets at the younger’s probing. His voice wavered, though he didn’t seem to notice – or care. His body continued to tremble and Donghyuck scanned the scuff of an injured knee and the ripped sweatpants that littered his frail form. His face shined in the moonlight that reflected over snow, shimmering with wet that Donghyuck wasn’t sure was formulated by slush or sweat.

He appeared hopeless and defeated; his expression reserved and downturned. Donghyuck felt his chest tighten with the scene before him and he sighed gently, bending his neck to let it snap and relax the tension that seized him. He couldn’t leave the boy to the cold – not when so helpless and frail as Renjun appeared before him. He was his friend.

And he’d done so in the past for a similar black haired boy.

Maybe the universe was playing on Donghyuck’s kindness.

Donghyuck studied the road once more, his hand twitching and itching to grasp his phone – to send a warning against Mark’s fairly likely arrival. He tilted his head with a slight nod to himself before staring to the boy who was unfamiliar to Donghyuck’s routine.

“Take your shoes-,” Donghyuck started, aware of the other’s incapability of knowing the younger’s need for cleanliness when sneaking him in. His mother wasn’t one to turn someone in need away, but he was aware that he had to keep his tendency to hustle in another boy – what with the frequency of visits – a secret. He halted his words as his gaze flickered over the small feet that lay nestled in the clumping snow of his porch staircase, soiling it rouge. His brows crumpled together, his nose twitching into a snarl of confusion. He stepped forward, a hand outstretched as if to touch the small boy’s injuries – to curb away the pain with the brush of his fingertips. Donghyuck stepped back and cast his eyes upward in worry, his expression marred as he opened the door wide.

Donghyuck would not let Renjun stand in pain.

His mind danced between thoughts, wonderment at the elder’s carelessness clutching him as he began to step forward. Renjun’s legs looked to drag slightly with the effort, fatigue weighing him from acting hurriedly, and Donghyuck shook his head softly in confusion.

“-wait here while I get a towel for your feet. So you don’t, y’know, stain the carpet with _blood_ ,” Donghyuck stepped away from Renjun’s measly grin, it appeared almost a grimace, and padded into his kitchen, toward the laundry room just to its left. He slipped his palm into the small pocket of his plaid pajama pants, the flannel stiflingly warm with Donghyuck’s harried state. The brown haired boy did not grapple with injuries – or concern, for that matter – well. He huffed a breath as he sweat lightly and tapped over the screen of his phone before tipping his head to glance at the white ceiling above him.

The steaming of the rag filtered to the underside of Donghyuck’s chin as he ventured back to the doorway, the wet that dripped wrung out into the bowl of the kitchen sink. His face was etched with worry as he approached the dazed and distraught elder, handing the rough towel to him and leaning backward slightly, gazing down as he crouched to scrape it against the underside of his feet.

“Renjun, I’m not going to ask, okay?” the other boy made a noise in affirmation, hissing with the sting of warmth that flooded feeling back into his numbed feet.

Donghyuck was going to ask.

With the hurt that flitted over the boy’s face, his fingers struggling clumsily over his grip on the rag, Donghyuck’s agitation grew. He seemed to be notably unwell; the shaking growing worse in the warmth of the younger’s home and his hands blistered pink.

The two were close, they spoke often and enjoyed each other’s company alongside their mutual friends; however, they’d never exclusively confided in or turned to the other in pursuit of help. They were friends, but they weren’t confidantes.

Renjun had Jaemin for that – and Donghyuck, Mark.

At least that’s what he had supposed.

Donghyuck wondered if his initial hesitation to entrust Mark with everything – if the emotions that overwhelmed him with the other’s company, a secret kept exclusively to himself – were reflected in Renjun. The elder _had_ stated that he couldn’t go to Jaemin.

The younger shook his head roughly as if to clear it, the waves of his hair flipping into his vision and catching over his eyelashes. As Renjun straightened before him, his hands shaking slightly, Donghyuck stepped backward toward the incline of steps and padded quietly upward, the soft carpet enveloping his socked feet. He slid into the thin crack of his doorway, pushing it slightly further ajar and splintering the quiet of the house with its screech.

Donghyuck was used to sleeping in the company of others; he did it almost weekly – at the most daily. But in that moment, his consciousness snagged by the confusion of Renjun’s state and the unease with which he spoke of his best friend, Donghyuck found he couldn’t shut his eyes from where they remained trained on the dimmed twinkle lights strung beside him. The air was heavy, the cover of dark doing little to mask the tension that pushed a hefty weight over the boy.

Donghyuck studied the small bulb, his mind frayed with the thoughts that afflicted over it. The soft sounds of sleep drifted from the floor below him, the rasps of Renjun’s deep breaths rupturing through the silence. The blanket of night was cool, the heating having kicked off briefly with the warmth of sleep filtrating over the house. The room was basked in a glow of pale indigo, silvery moonlight and ice dripping over the powder blue walls in the shadows.

Donghyuck shifted his gaze and pulled himself upward. He hunched over his crossed ankles, resting his elbows atop the bent knees. His comforter was warm but the bare of his arms were cold to touch with the winter temperature. The boy shoved his face into his palms, a yawn pulling from him and tremoring his body against the soft cushion of his mattress. He lugged himself from his drowsy stupor and tilted his head backward to the dark of his ceiling.

A small water stain darkened the drywall above him in a puddle. Donghyuck studied the spot with a sigh, the familiarity of its discoloration settling the worry that spilled over him for the small boy that lay curled over the floor.

Donghyuck picked his feet up and pushed them from where they wound around each other over the bed, setting them over the cool carpet. A pool of white rested in the vague outline of his window across the carpet, the full moon spilling in droplets of light. Donghyuck brushed his feet over the patch, sliding past the shaking boy to lean over his desk toward the window.

The night sky was clear and open, the moon at a low angle to blind directly into the small room with the dim glow of stars painting across the galaxy in pinpricks of white. The dull coloring of insipid blue was murky with the approaching daylight, spreading low over the horizon in a thin strip of light. It wasn’t often that Donghyuck could raise himself early enough to see the blooming of colors over the skyline.

Donghyuck preferred to rise with the warmth that blossomed over his chest in the pooling of sunlight that spewed through his window and across his bed.

The hesitant world outside was still, resembling a photograph with the frigid cold of winter. The only movement that fluttered before Donghyuck was the wind that blustered over the powdered mounds of snow and blew the top of the dusting across the ground in clouds of soft ivory. The slope of rooftop lay barren and flattened in the snow, the usual ridges of shingles rounded out and smoothed to soft slants of cotton.

Donghyuck wondered over when the weather would begin to warm again. The holidays had just begun, the New Year approaching slowly in the dense winter, and the boy couldn’t help but feel tired of the plummeting temperatures. He yearned for the green of trees and the carpet of grass to glitter with afternoon sun once more – to bask in the golden heat that licked his skin to a bronzed tone as he rested his chin over his hands with the ease of a cat.

It was in the midst of a scalding summer, the sky clear of clouds and the beam of yellow blinding the backs of Donghyuck’s clenched eyelids to red, when the boy had first encountered the eldest of his friends. He’d been sprawled across the mass of grass, his limbs flailed into a starfish and his face turned from the bright blue expanse of sky. He’d shut his eyes, the aromatic air stifling with humidity and hints of pollen tickling his throat, and allowed the enchantment of the growing heat to dull his thoughts to a whisper beneath the steady buzz of the blushed summer. The brilliant rays of light sunk into a vivid caress against his skin, coloring him red with sweat in the comforting inferno of sun.

The softness of spring had ebbed away to a world of rugged edges and kindling. The perfume of flowers curled gently over the figure, coating the world in an elastic stroke of euphoria. The air conditioned walls of home had smothered the beauty of sizzling afternoons and long dusks; uncomfortable for the short boy who had preferred the warmth that pooled in his gut with the sunshine.

Donghyuck had lazed drowsily in the tall grass, his vision blurred to a haze of jade and emerald, the chirp of cicadas muffling to a soft cry with the drooping of his eyelids downward. His mouth tasted of the strawberry lemonade that rested, teetering, in the grass beside him. The ice had melted to dilute it to a soft tang of sweetness in plain water. Donghyuck had lifted his arm lazily to trace the pads of his fingers against the fogged condensation of glass with the breeze that caressed the slicked skin of his bare forehead, his bangs flipped behind him with the angle his head rested.

The wind whistled with laughter in his ears, tips reddened in the summer heat, and tousled the soft curls that lay lax over his scalp. The soft hum of distant lawn mowers murmured lullabies over him and the heat exhaustion pulled his frame slack.

The soft thud of footsteps ambling over the dense earth had roused Donghyuck from his stupor and he’d squinted into the blinding canopy of light. The boy turned his blurred vision to the layer of green that met him eye level, the unfurling of blades glinting white with the reflection of sunny skies across their slick forms.

A pair of converse clad feet stood an arm’s length away.

“I trust you wouldn’t want me to mow over you.”

Donghyuck shifted his gaze up, trailing over the lanky legs, dressed in loose, dark-wash jeans, to the smug face that smiled down to him. The mid July sky blackened the features drastically, the ghost of his expression vague to Donghyuck’s squinted stare, and he could study only the black hair that rested softly over his darkened form and ruffled delicately in the wind.

Donghyuck bent his knees to settle the flat of his bare feet over the ground and slid them in the grass as he pulled himself to a seated position. The boy’s face came into view as he was no longer illuminated by the sunny sky.

“Who are you?” Donghyuck’s head was foggy with the heat as he tilted it at the boy who leaned down over him.

“Mark,” he spoke as if it was answer enough and the other’s brows rose.

“Okay…” Donghyuck trailed off in question.

“Your parents, I suppose, told me I could mow the grass,” Mark crouched beside Donghyuck with a soft smile, “and I don’t think you want to be in the middle of that.”

“My dad mows the grass.”

“Well, your dad is paying _me_ to mow it today,” Mark grinned and the other twisted his mouth with a pout. He glanced to the long blades of green, no longer stunted with cold and growing excessively. Mark ran a hand through his dark hair and straightened once more, pushing heavily onto his knees with the effort. Donghyuck flumped backward into the grass and heaved a sigh.

“Can’t you mow around me?” he groaned.

The boy above him had smirked and let out a breathy chuckle as he stepped away.

“I suppose so.”

Donghyuck smiled to the familiar patch in the middle of his vast yard, dead center between the thick coating of trees that wrapped his property. It was unspectacular and glistening white with the rest of the large stretch but Donghyuck knew the spot with confidence. It was the only area that remained swathed in sunshine from dawn until dusk.

It was the only spot that remained overgrown the entirety of the summer months.

Donghyuck watched the door close behind Renjun, his form disappearing from view and causing the younger to lurch backward into his seat. Donghyuck sighed heavily, raking a hand through his disheveled hair and shutting his eyes tightly. He was tired and simply wanted to go home and slump into the fluff of his blankets.

Renjun was disconcerted, Donghyuck could tell, but he didn’t want to probe the elder – wasn’t keen on the idea of making the other more uncomfortable than he already described himself to be. Renjun’s business wasn’t Donghyuck’s. So, with a grumble and the crack of his knuckles, Donghyuck accelerated down the street from where he’d been stalling in front of the small house.

The neighborhood was quiet, the solitude of night dousing the houses in a mantle of violet hues. Donghyuck yawned, his eyes clenching shut as apprehension wracked his vulnerable state before he wrenched them wide to stare safely into the road. He lifted a hand from the wheel to bite the tip of his index, the nail scraping against the rough of his teeth.

Donghyuck startled with the drone of his phone reverberating through the quiet car, the radio silenced with the hush of the dead of night. The boy flicked his eyes to where the vibrating cell droned against his middle console, drifting with the sliding car, and reached blindly toward it. He grasped the cool metal, its screen greased slightly with Donghyuck’s lazy tendency to procrastinate cleaning it.

“Hello?” his voice rasped quietly. He kept his tone hushed in fear of breaking the tranquility that filled the car with a dull purr.

“Donghyuck,” the voice whined.

“What can I do you for, Mark?” he hummed, flicking his eyes across the road as he slowed before a stop sign.

“You sound like you’re in a car,” the crackled tone replied and Donghyuck huffed slightly.

“You sound like you’re not,” Donghyuck could hear the dull murmur of voices in the distant call, jeers and the drumming of music filtering into the microphone Mark spoke through to the other.

“Hyuckie, will you pick me up?” the boy whined once more, dragging out his words with a high pitch and light sniffle. Donghyuck rolled his eyes and lingered by the stop sign. There were few cars he’d encountered and he put the car in neutral, resting in the middle of the road as he looked to the phone in his hands.

Donghyuck felt his fatigue; he knew it was incredibly unsafe for him to continue driving with the lack of sleep that pulled him down. He dropped his head forward, lightly hitting it against the top of his steering wheel with a grunt before leaving it to hang there.

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know,” the voice was breathy and Donghyuck wanted to groan.

“You’re not being helpful, Mark. It’s late.”

“Give me a minute to figure it out,” the tone was small and the boy grew agitated, glancing in the rear view mirror for any cars that drifted behind him. He remained alone. “Alright,” Mark spouted an address and Donghyuck looked for it in his phone, groaning at the distance it stood from his current location. It was closer to Mark’s college campus.

“I’m about to fall asleep, Mark,” Donghyuck trailed off and checked the dashboard of his car.

_1:32_

“I’ll stay on the call to keep you safe!” the muffled voice was slurred and overly pepped and Donghyuck pushed his bangs from his forehead, shifting the gears of his car and slinking forward.

“Technically you’re putting me in danger by being on the phone with me,” Donghyuck skimmed his eyes over the road, watching the turn of his automated directions and clicking the tail lights to signal his departure from the road.

“But you’re less likely to fall asleep,” he whined in response.

“Who are you with?”

“No one,” Mark whispered, Donghyuck could almost see the elder’s pout. “I came with Yukhei, from engineering, but he left earlier. He went to get ice cream, I think.”

“And you didn’t want ice cream?” Donghyuck almost cooed, his tone light as he spoke to the other’s small voice that was refracted through the drone of his phone.

Mark made a noise of affirmation and Donghyuck felt the pricking of a yawn spring tears to his eyes as he worked to fend it off. “-wanted to get tipsy,” he mumbled and Donghyuck scoffed.

“You sure this is just tipsy?”

“That was hours ago,” Donghyuck guffawed at the elder’s dejected tone and shifted lanes with a glance backward.

“Alright, Mark, sit tight,” Donghyuck smiled as the other hummed in response.

The younger had grown well acquainted with the different forms of Mark’s personality – the snarky whilst sober and the whine that would tear over Mark’s drunken daze. He’d begun to differentiate his own personality in accordance to dealing with such, comforting the elder when he was intoxicated and filled with a giddy childlike persona.

“-gonna take me home?” he whispered and Donghyuck’s stomach twisted – home was his own small house.

“Yes, I’ll take you home,” he said in his own hushed voice.

It had been a while since Donghyuck had first pulled the other into his room, their voices laced with hushed apprehension and secrets. Mark had slipped in through the door with a confused stumble and slid his hands over the rail behind Donghyuck, avoiding sneaking himself into his own house for fear of his parents. He’d returned mere days after without the glaze of alcohol heating his stomach and filling his eyes.

And Donghyuck continued to slip him into his room and onto his sheets.

“I’m hungry,” Mark whispered into the call.

“I’ll make you a snack at the house,” the other spoke as he continue to slip through the streets, easing onto the break at the gleam of red that reflected over his windshield.

“Popcorn?” the light voice was hopeful, excitement gleaming into the darkened backseat of the car.

“Popcorn’s a little loud,” Donghyuck spoke with a wince and a sniff filtered through the speaker, a shuffle following. Mark was nodding through a phone call. “How’s ice cream? Since you didn’t go with Yukhei,” Donghyuck laughed softly.

“Cookies and cream?” Mark piped in.

“And green tea,” Donghyuck almost winked to himself with the absence of the elder to tease, a grin sliding over his face as he heard the groan that flitted through the cell into his car.

“I don’t like the green tea flavor.”

“I know,” Donghyuck laughed. The directions read two minutes more. “I’m almost there.”

A grunt answered him and Donghyuck could hear shifting through the phone. “I’m by the mailbox,” came the reply and the other nodded to himself, straining his eyes in the dark to the houses that lined each street. He pulled to a stop as his phone ended the route. Donghyuck glanced to the mobile in his hands as the call clicked off and furrowed his brow. The door beside him opened and the cool air slipped in alongside a boy.

Donghyuck studied the slumped form, his head rested against the window before he turned to smile messily at the younger. His hair was askew and his hoodie rumpled slightly.

“Seatbelt,” Donghyuck nodded his head to the object and the other quickly twisted, slipping the belt over his body and securing it with a soft click. He looked up for approval and the other nodded, turning his eyes to the road and pulling forward.

The car ride remained quiet, the dazed boy drifting his eyes shut against the glass and slipping off with the thrum of its engine. Donghyuck yawned. The air was thick with the blast of the heater, his eyes stinging with the dry air that shot toward him, making breathing hard but keeping the warmth from dwindling away. Donghyuck frowned as his lethargy worsened with the heat that was emanating in the car.

He slumped his shoulders as he slid the car to a halt, twisting the key to kill the engine and snapping the belt that rested over him off. With a small stretch, Donghyuck hopped from the car and nudged the other’s shoulder, receiving a slit eyelid and slurred grumble. Donghyuck wrapped his arm over the other’s waist and pulled him into the house.

The hall light was flicked off and Donghyuck strained his eyes in the pitch dark, leading the languid form up the steep steps and into his shut bedroom. The curly haired boy slumped onto his mattress with a soft whine, his eyes drifting shut as he allowed sleep to seep in.

An overwhelming sense of warmth filled the pit of Donghyuck’s stomach, covering his body and shrouding him goosebumps, as the other looped his arms around the boy’s waist, his tender touch burning over his skin through the thick material of his sweatshirt.

“You promised ice cream.”

ii.

Donghyuck spent the birth of the New Year plagued with the fear of the acceptance letter he’d received the week prior.

He’d applied for early decision in a college out of state and away from the only familiarity he’d ever known.

And he had to leave.

iii.

The soft padding of sod molded over Donghyuck’s sock clad feet as he ventured into the yard. The air was warm, though an idle breeze chilled the beaming sun in the dull spring morning. He set his knees into the ground, pulling his sock loose over his foot where a hole revealed a strip of his heel. His fingers knitted in the cool grass, the dew wetting his hands and setting into the fabric of his pants that rested over the grass.

He held a small glass of water in his hands as he sat back onto his heels, sipping the liquid whilst gazing over the rim to the trees. The leaves were neon with the new breadth of spring blossoming, the dark green of forest not yet set in with the heat.

Donghyuck set the drink beside him in the slanted grass, water beading over it and slicking his hands. He leaned back onto his palms and his eyes trained upward to the pale sky, bending his elbows slightly with the tilt of his head. His hair brushed the nape of his neck with its slant and he watched the dainty puffs dance across the horizon.

Frogs croaked in the early morning light and the boy grinned, stretching his feet before him. The sky smiled over him; blue as an endless lake, sparkling and rippling smoothly. The soft drum of a distant grass cutter settled over Donghyuck’s lax form and he glanced toward the hilly street, his eyes venturing over the satin strands of each lawn. The smell of dew that followed the blooming of dawn was similar to that of after the rain; petrichor floating over the boy, distinct and earthen.

The distant hum of mowing cut out and Donghyuck yawned behind a flattened palm. He wiped his hand over his forehead, the wet of grass cooling and slicking the mound of bedhead away. He’d woken only to immediately venture toward the vast expanse of green, the temperature finally having risen to something tolerable in his pair of sweats and thin cotton sleep shirt. His stomach remained empty as he ignored its insistent growl to lie in the tepid weather.

The soft groan of wheels approached the lounging boy; lose gravel from the pavement crunching beneath. Donghyuck shut his eyes in the sunlight.

“It’s warm,” Donghyuck stated to the tips of trees, never turning to the scuttle of footsteps feet away.

“Ready to be my obstacle course?” Donghyuck squinted through the trees then turned with a grin to the elder.

“Aren’t I just a model and you a mere artist?”

“I’m tracing your outline with a grass cutter, not making a sculpture.”

Donghyuck pouted and turned away once more, leaning back further onto his forearms. “I want it to be summer.”

“Then you’ll have graduated,” Donghyuck tilted his head at the other’s words. He still felt like a child.

“I’m not sure I’m ready to – graduate, I mean.”

Mark scoffed from where he fumbled behind him, the push mower rattling with his actions. “You’re ready to graduate,” Donghyuck turned and met Mark’s gaze, his eyebrow raised, “you’re not ready to _leave_.”

“Does it make much of a difference?” Donghyuck skimmed his eyes over the weeds that scattered over the sidewalk. “I’m not going far anyway.”

“But you won’t have your lawn,” Mark shrugged, a small grin playing over his mouth as the younger scowled.

“Will you still mow around my spot?”

“No,” the other deadpanned bending over as the other feigned offence, “that’d be so much added effort.”

Donghyuck groaned and ground his heels into the soft dirt. “I’m still a kid.”

“At least you don’t mow lawns for a living.”

Donghyuck jeered, “I’m going to have to start to pay my tuition,” Mark laughed beside him and Donghyuck grinned timidly, humming with pride.

Mark halted his struggle and approached the younger, dropping onto the sodden grass. The two glared through the bright, spring sunshine and watched the flowering of spring unfold almost before their eyes; bird’s chirping and flitting through the budding trees. Donghyuck dropped back onto his forearms with a bend of his elbows.

“Do you like the summer?” Mark turned to him as Donghyuck addressed him.

“I do,” he started, turning back as he spoke, “but I also really like the snow.”

Donghyuck scrunched his nose, “But it’s all cold and wet – and muddy.”

“It gets muddy in the summertime too, Hyuck.”

Donghyuck hummed with a slight tilt to his head. “But it’s not miserably cold.”

“I’m not saying it’s not nice to have the warmth,” Mark shrugged, tipping his head back in the grass beside Donghyuck. Donghyuck leaned back to lie beside him, “I just also really like the snow, is all. I think it’s all very pretty. And sometimes the heat isn’t very nice.”

“And yet you mow lawns.”

“I had a mower and a need for cash.”

“And a hatred for heat,” Donghyuck tilted his head to the side and studied Mark’s lax form.

“And a summer baby to look forward to.”

Donghyuck’s stomach twisted and he glanced away with the flush that rose on his cheeks as posies. He hoped the burn of sun and warmth would mask the glow of red that set over him in embarrassment.

“Early June isn’t summer,” Donghyuck chided, though his voice was soft with near self-consciousness.

“Well, then I had my own personal sun to look forward to.”

Donghyuck grinned cheekily and turned to catch the elder’s eyes, “I thought you didn’t like the heat.”

Mark groaned and shook his head at the other. Donghyuck yawned with the rising light, settling above them heavily with the approach of midday. The soft breeze and damp of daybreak bid away to the newly sweltering sun that beat over Donghyuck’s splayed form. Mark sat up.

“I should probably get started so I’m not caught too far behind in the heat,” he stood with a hassle, stretching his arms upward and revealing a thin stripe of pale skin from below the white of his t-shirt hem.

“I’ll be here,” Donghyuck shut his eyes against the cheery boy above him, ignoring the tightening of his chest. The hum of the mower burst into Donghyuck’s ears and he smiled with its groan as it drove back and forth over his yard.

Donghyuck had found that he’d never once missed Mark mowing his lawn since the boy had first taken to doing so. He’d spent the majority of summers lounging in the squish of weeds and, in turn, had repeatedly encountered the elder whilst catnapping outdoors. He’d taken a routine to closing his eyes and humming alongside the thrum, tracing the movements with his ears as he imagined its route over his lawn. He’d wake himself, the newfound silence having startled him with the absence of the drum he’d grown accustomed, after drifting to a trance with the world painted blue from the darkness of his eyelids.

The brown haired boy glanced over the cloud that hung in the sky, bringing his index forward to bite over the nail and pad. He watched how they slid across the sky, wondering over whether they shifted or the world tilted. The mower passed behind him.

Donghyuck tilted his head back further, arching his spine to glance at the boy that paced behind him. His brow was furrowed slightly as he studied the green blades harshly, pushing the humming machine with a slight sheen over his temple. Donghyuck grinned as he caught his eye.

The younger boy broke his eyes away and rested back onto the flat of ground with the overpowering sense of warmth that hung over him with the elder’s smirk. Goosebumps crawled over Donghyuck’s skin and he rolled his eyes in annoyance towards his body’s reaction, a tingle springing in the pit of his stomach, in the muscles of his calves, in the pads of his fingers.

He lifted his hands above him, the tips of each of his appendages outstretched toward the sky. He studied the caress of his fingers against the expanse of sky, reaching to touch the puffs of white and sea of blue. It appeared so tangible to him.

The groan of Mark’s mower cut out and Donghyuck allowed his hands to remain hanging above him – ever reaching to the heavens. The soft ground squished below the familiar converse clad feet and a pale hand slid over the younger’s outstretched ones, clasping it softly.

Donghyuck’s hand burned even with the ever-present cold of Mark’s palms.

Mark lowered himself beside Donghyuck once more, the hand held for leverage before tenderly released onto the grass. They remained silent for a moment, Donghyuck’s left hand still lifted toward the skies while the right rested in the tall grass.

“What’re you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Donghyuck shrugged and dropped his arm with a thud, “it all looks so pretty.”

Mark shifted to study the sky further. “It’s very blue today.”

Donghyuck hummed softly and released a yawn, he dung his hands into the strands of green and tugged. A few blades broke off into his fists.

“I’ll give you the sky for summer.”

Donghyuck grunted and crossed his brows as he glanced to the elder, “You’re giving me what?”

“I mean the sky is better in summer,” Mark scoffed, “like, I give you the point. In winter it can be dreary, I guess? But summer skies are always pleasant.”

Donghyuck shook his head, “What about when it storms?”

“They turn the sky orange sometimes. That’s cool.”

Donghyuck laughed and tipped his head onto the cool sod. Mark grinned and slanted his eyes to Donghyuck’s brightened expression, his eyes squinted in joy. “Do you think summers are like this everywhere?”

“Like what?” Mark wondered and Donghyuck raised his shoulders.

“Always so sunny and warm.”

“Isn’t that the concept of summer, Duckie?” Donghyuck grinned with the name.

He laughed in embarrassment, “Well, I don’t know. What about Antarctica?”

“It’s still closest to the sun in summer so – yeah. Summer for them may be a hell of a lot different than it is for us but, it’s still the brightest time of the year, isn’t it?” Donghyuck shrugged again. Mark laughed at the response to his rhetorical questioning.

“Alright,” Donghyuck continued to grapple with the grass, pulling the greenery above his face and braiding the pieces together. A few dropped onto his cheeks and he blew them away with a huff as the other chuckled. Donghyuck’s face remained pensive as he studied his fiddling fingers. “Do you think I’m ready to leave?”

Mark grunted his confusion.

“Like for college.”

“That’s not really something I can dictate,” Donghyuck turned to the boy’s response.

“I don’t think I’m ready to leave home – or grow up, for that matter,” Mark’s eyes flit between Donghyuck’s worried stare, searching them for something – maybe the correct response he wanted to hear. Donghyuck wasn’t sure what that response would be.

“We all grow up eventually.”

Donghyuck’s heart sped as he spoke, his chest pained with his thoughts, “It’s all so scary to me – being alive.”

“What do you mean, Hyuck?” Mark’s brows were crunched together.

“I- thinking about leaving reminds me that I’m growing up and it’s all going fast. I’m just reminded of mortality, I guess,” the younger almost expected Mark to laugh with the small curve of his lips.

“It’s not something we can control, Duckie. Besides, growing up is something beautiful. You just have to push past that fear to see the beauty in aging, I suppose,” surprise flickered over Donghyuck’s features and he quirked his head, digging his scalp further into the dirt.

“It’s beautiful?”

“Why not?” Mark’s smile had grown bright and Donghyuck’s eyes jumped to rest over his beaming mouth, “It’s rare and lucky, so why not see it as beautiful? Even if it’s scary, it’s unavoidable and rather exciting to think about,” Mark’s eyes glinted as the younger turned back to them. They were fairly close to each other, noses mere inches apart as they lay in the yard. “And you won’t always think of it as so scary.”

“I just don’t like the idea that life is so fragile.”

“You’re going to college, Donghyuck,” Mark smirked and cocked an eyebrow as the other frowned slightly, “not war. I don’t think you need to worry about death yet.”

“I can’t help it,” Donghyuck sighed, turning back to the blue of sky, “and graduating is just a constant reminder of how fast everything moves.”

“Just because it’s fast doesn’t mean it won’t be enjoyable,” Mark softened his expression even as the younger remained looking away. The elder could tell how unwell the other felt with the topic, his golden face paled with apprehension, “don’t worry over things you can’t control, Donghyuck. It’ll all turn out how it should in the end.”

Donghyuck flicked his eyes toward the elder, his stomach twisted and the backs of his eyes burning with the thought of it all coming to an ending – an end that may be simply emptiness. He shook the thoughts from his head with a soft smile toward the elder.

“Yeah, you’re right, I know. It just all scares me so much.”

“We can’t control it all, focus on what you can control. Growing up is never a bad thing. I hope you can be excited about graduating, I know I was. You deserve it, Donghyuck.” Donghyuck laughed slightly with Marks words and studied the sky with a soft smile.

Growing up was inevitable. Leaving was inevitable.

But he didn’t have to change with it.

“I’m excited to not have to be quiet for midnight snacks,” Mark giggled beside him and nodded.

“Unless your roommate actually gets sleep, unlike you,” Donghyuck sneered at Mark’s words and shot him a playful glare.

“I don’t need sleep.”

“Not according to these,” Mark quipped, swiping a finger below Donghyuck’s eyes. Donghyuck didn’t say the only reason he stayed up was to make sure the other could get inside.

“I get plenty of sleep.”

“Yeah, because you nap all day,” Mark shifted his gaze back to the budding trees, “and you just said you didn’t need any.”

“I don’t.”

Mark rolled his eyes and knocked his shoulder against the other’s. Donghyuck’s cheeks flushed. “Sure you don’t,” sarcasm laced his tone and Donghyuck watched him as he looked upward. The sun rested high in the sky, a blinding white with midday and Donghyuck’s stomach nearly rumbled with the reminder of the hours he’d spent lounged over the grass in his sweatpants.

“I guess I should head inside,” Donghyuck’s eyes were glazed as they flickered over the bright sky, heat already beginning to color his skin and bead his hairline with sweat in the early spring. He wondered over the heat that would accompany the oncoming summer, the spring’s temperature already above average than he’d have expected. None of it was unwelcomed – Donghyuck happened to like the sweltering hot.

“You were my last house so I can just pack up,” Mark shoved upward on his hands and stood. He bent slightly over the younger as he remained in a laying position and lowered an open palm to him. Donghyuck grasped it and pulled upward; Mark’s palm was cool despite the heavy heat and Donghyuck’s own was slickened with perspiration. He grimaced and swiped it over his pants with a muttered apology. Mark only giggled.

“Did you want a drink before you left?” Donghyuck remembered his mother’s hospitality each time she encountered the boy, offering such to Mark similarly as she did.

“Mind if I just steal some of yours?” Mark waved a hand down to the small mason jar of melting ice and water. The younger nodded and crouched to grab it for him. The glass dripped with condensation but a few small cubes of ice glistened with their float over the water. Donghyuck stretched it toward the elder, wincing slightly with the brush of their fingertips over each other’s. Donghyuck blamed the wet coating the glass for how his hand nearly slipped.

“Thanks, Hyuck,” Mark sipped the cool liquid quickly, heat having dried his mouth. His throat bobbed with each swallow and Donghyuck hurried his eyes away as his heartbeat quickened.

Mark’s skin glistened with sweat under the warm skies and he seemed to blend with the flowering spring that sprung around them; a piece of nature’s beauty, shining in the bright sunshine as spring soaked away the wet of winter. He was still pale, despite his surplus of time spent outdoors over lawns, and the blinding of his perspiration appeared nearly ethereal.

He felt a fire in his stomach, sparked with the intimate view of the elder’s throat, and it sent his mind nearly dizzied. The joints of his knees tingled and an ache shocked through Donghyuck’s fingers as he clenched them inward into a fist, carving soft moons into the curve of his palm. The creases of his elbows felt warm alongside the backs of his knees and the slope of his neck. Donghyuck sighed and rolled his neck over his shoulders in a stretch.

His chest felt painfully tight.

iv.

Donghyuck stood beside Renjun, a beam plastered brightly over his face and an arm wrapped around the smaller. The black of his gown was blistering in the late May sun, absorbing the sunlight that radiated from above and submerging the boy in a constant cloak of heat and sweat.

Donghyuck watched his mother, a small woman whose personality made up for lack of height in extroversion, as she crouched before the pair, a small camera clutched in her hand. Renjun laughed beside him as she spouted directions and twisted her body to get a few strange angles. Donghyuck groaned and told her to get on with it.

The small huddle of boys stood behind Donghyuck’s mother, watching the antics unfold with a cloud of snickers. Jaemin and Jeno were draped in similar gowns, the tassels of their caps having already been flipped alongside their peers during the ceremony, while the three others were dressed in vaguely formal attire.

Donghyuck wanted to leave, watching the parking lot fill with traffic as they stood about lazily. It’d be awhile before he could pull his car out, the others in tow, and arrive at the small donut joint that lay on the highway a little ways away from the high school. He had a graduation cake he’d preordered awaiting his gurgling belly.

He’d had a small granola bar to dull his hunger but it had only lasted the extent of him bounding over the stage, grabbing his diploma (though the folder he received hadn’t actually held the certificate) with a bright grin and slight hop. He found that the surplus of photos he’d taken with his small group of friends drained him and furthered his want to retreat to his old car with the continuous spouts of direction his mother shouted tirelessly.

Renjun stepped away from Donghyuck’s side and approached the outstretched hand of Jaemin, a bright grin splintering the younger’s expression as Renjun approached. A small smile curled the corners of Donghyuck’s lips as the pair curled into each other despite the nearing summer heat. A camera clicked and Donghyuck scowled at his mother as she caught the pair in a photograph.

Donghyuck dragged his feet forward as his mother ushered him to join the group hurriedly, the sun burning the dark of his hair that slipped from his cap. He approached the others, standing a small ways away from the couple that beamed toward his mother’s lens. Donghyuck glanced away as his arm was tugged, Jaemin’s fingers clasping the loose sleeve and pulling him into the two boys’ embrace. Jaemin’s eyes never left the camera before them. Donghyuck laughed.

The camera clicked.

A thin pair of arms wrapped over Donghyuck’s shoulders and he startled as the head settled over his shoulder. Mark shot a bright beam to the camera as Donghyuck mused over his sudden appearance, glancing over his features. Donghyuck’s cheeks heated and a small smile slipped onto his mouth.

The camera clicked.

“Alright,” Donghyuck’s shoulders deflated as his mother straightened fully, dropping the camera from her face for the first time in what had felt like hours. “Will you be coming home with us Donghyuck?” she spoke to the boy as she neared him and he shook his head gently, the soft of tassel tickling across his ear and the bare of his heated neck.

“I have to pick up the donut cake,” he stated as she gripped onto his hand with a soft smile, assessing his form for the millionth time, “I think the others are coming with, I’ll be home by the time you wanted to have lunch though,” Donghyuck lifted his phone to glance at the time that it read. “If I can ever get out of this parking lot,” he muttered as he returned his eyes to the bumper to bumper traffic that filled the lot.

She smiled again and Donghyuck watched his dad approach from the small gathering of other parents that dispersed to their children, lifting his hands in a small wave.

“You be careful then,” she stated and turned to the older man.

“Congratulations, Donghyuck,” his dad grinned and Donghyuck chuckled at the words he’d already heard repeated continuously, “I heard you all were planning a trip for a few weeks from now?”

Donghyuck turned his eyes to the boys that surrounded him, each grinning to their parents, “We wanted to head to the beach for my birthday,” he looked back to the taller form of his father.

“Were you planning on mentioning it?” he winked and Donghyuck rolled his eyes.

“We’ve still got two weeks until then, we weren’t sure if it was happening yet,” he raised his shoulders alongside his eyebrows.

“Well, alright,” his father rested a hand over his shoulder, the other palm still clutched in his mother’s palm. Donghyuck studied the smiling pair with a soft admiration, grinning at their reflected expressions and leaning into his mother’s side.

“You didn’t get any pictures with me,” he said softly, nudging her and her features softened further.

“I thought you wouldn’t be willing for more photos,” she teased and he shrugged.

He clutched his mom’s hand tighter and lifted the camera from where it hung over her neck. It slipped over her tied hair and he turned to the figure of Jaemin with his parents. “Jaemin, take a picture for me?” The boy turned with a smile and shot him a thumb up, backing away from the pair of his parents and reaching an outstretched hand toward Donghyuck’s extended camera.

“Don’t worry Mrs. Lee, I’m a professional,” he winked and she chuckled with the tall boy.

“You take after me,” Jaemin laughed with a nod at the memory of her photography.

Donghyuck gripped his mother’s hand and rested his head over his father’s taller shoulder, a bright beam raising his cheeks and crinkling his eyes to a squint. Jaemin took a few photos, a smile reflecting the other’s expressions as he clicked over the shutter.

“Thank you,” he muttered to his parents and his mother’s hand tightened over his.

Donghyuck had spent that past month drenched in apprehension toward the descent of his graduation. He’d feared the day repeatedly and allowed it to greatly affect the plans his parents had tried to begin to spring on him – the approach of his relatives and party invitations. His mother had noticed and quickly taken to comforting the boy as he found himself plagued with dread toward the sudden change.

Instead of a day filled with anxiety, he’d received one of happiness. And Donghyuck owed it all to his family. He owed it all to Mark’s words as they lay in the grass.

Donghyuck’s mother stepped away toward Jaemin while thanking him and grabbed the small camera from him.

“Are you coming with me to the donut shop?” the elder nudged Jaemin and he nodded, gesturing back toward Renjun.

“We’ll meet you there; I’m going to ride with him so we can stop by the store after.”

Donghyuck nodded and hummed along with Jaemin’s words, glancing over Renjun. He was beaming up to his parents, his hands grasped tightly together as they fussed over his crooked cap. Donghyuck hadn’t spoken to them often, introduced merely months prior, but Renjun had started to speak of them repeatedly – of how they’d begun to treat him since he’d first grown closer with Donghyuck the past winter.

“Do you know if Jeno is coming?” Donghyuck glanced to the boy who was further away, situated beside his mother.

“I think we’re all coming, but Jeno has his car so he probably won’t carpool – saves time from needing to pick it up after,” Donghyuck nodded with Jaemin’s words, “Jisung needs a ride though, he said he refused to ride with us because he’ll third wheel.”

Donghyuck lifted a brow, “He didn’t drive here?”

“Shocking, I know. Despite him being an _avid_ and _wonderful_ driver since he got his license, Chenle’s parents drove the both of them this morning. Mark too, I think,” Donghyuck glanced to the black haired boy whose loud giggle resounded near them.

“Yeah, he told me that. He doesn’t have his car with him at college,” Donghyuck mused.

“I wish my college let me have my car as a freshman – walking everywhere sounds unappealing,” Jaemin whined and Donghyuck chuckled.

“Where would you have to go other than to class, Jaemin? You’re living on campus, you don’t need it.”

“I should be able to drive away from campus if I’d like, and without a car I can’t.”

Donghyuck shook his head as he glanced up to the younger, “You don’t need a car.”

Jaemin pouted, “Easy for you to say, you get your car.”

“I’m also going out of state for college,” Donghyuck rolled his eyes and tugged his parents’ sleeves for their attention. They turned to him with slightly raised eyebrows. “I think I’ll head out now,” he pointed his voice toward them and his mother smiled.

“Alright, we’ll do the same then. Drive safe?” Donghyuck’s mother stated and the boy smiled, reaching his arm out to hug her side.

“Will do. I’ll be home in an hour or so,” Donghyuck assessed the parking lot, the line having shortened vastly and the spots cleared nearly entirely. He squinted to the light gray form of his car and noted the lack of cars surrounding it. His mother nodded and he waved a hand and backed away, pushing Jaemin forward with him.

“I’m going to offer the others a ride,” Donghyuck split off from Jaemin’s beeline toward Renjun and laughed at the grunt from the other as he smiled sweetly to the small boy that whined with his parents.

Chenle tugged Donghyuck into a hug as he neared them and the elder begin to screech, flailing his arms, “Congratulations, Hyuck!” he shouted and the boy whined at the assault.

“I get it, I get it!” he shouted as the two youngest continued to fuss over him. He pulled back and straightened his gown. “I was going to offer a ride, but I suppose not after that.”

Chenle whined and reached for Donghyuck again. The elder ducked away closer to the eldest.

“Don’t stick me in a car with Renjun and Jaemin,” Jisung groaned, glancing to the clasped hands of his elders from across the sidewalk.

“Jeno’s always an option,” Donghyuck shrugged his shoulders and lifted a hand toward the approaching boy and Jisung shook his head.

“You ride with Jeno and it’ll take forever. I swear he slows at green lights just in case they turn yellow,” Jeno rolled his eyes as he listened to the younger boy’s words, unfurling his middle fingers with a glance to his preoccupied parents, “I just want donuts, I’m too hungry to wait for him to check every blind spot when he turns.”

“Remind me to never get in a car you’re driving,” Donghyuck muttered with a soft giggle, “you need to check blind spots when you merge, buddy.”

“At least I won’t die,” Jeno grunted and waved goodbye to his parents that shouted in the distance.

“Okay, Grandpa,” Jisung shrugged, “I’m just always in a hurry.”

“If you ride with me I’m going to give you a lesson on driving,” Donghyuck stated with a smirk, watching the other roll his eyes.

“I passed my test, I think I’m fine.”

“You almost maxed out on checks, bud,” Chenle nudged him and Jisung turned to him with a scowl.

“I still passed.”

Donghyuck turned to Mark and brushed his arm with a hand. The elder flicked his dark eyes to Donghyuck’s. “Are you riding with me or Jeno?” Donghyuck said softly and the other smiled in response, bending his elbow slightly to dig into the younger’s gut. The boy scowled and shoved Mark away.

“I’ll go with you – easier for you to drop me off after, anyway,” Donghyuck nodded and turned back to the bickering younger boys.

“Alright, well, I’m leaving,” Donghyuck laughed and walked off, aware of Mark’s presence at his side but ignoring the scramble of boys following him. Jeno shouted to the boys who ran from him as he offered to drive them. Donghyuck waved to Renjun and his parents, Jaemin grinning at him as he flung his car door open and settled into his seat.

“My air conditioner is broken so you have to deal with the windows down instead,” Donghyuck laughed as the boys groaned, settling into the old car and sticking their hands out the windows as the boy rolled them down slowly. The smell of the car was stale with the heat that settled in it as it sat roasting in the rising sun as midday approached.

Donghyuck settled his hands over the leather steering wheel and flinched away with a hiss directed at the heat that radiated from it.

“Ow,” he whined and Mark flicked his ear with a teasing giggle.

Donghyuck pulled the car backward, steering toward the entrance of the school before drifting down the neighborhoods and townhouses that surrounded the high school campus, turning onto the small highway. Music hummed softly through the air, muted by the whipping of wind through the open windows of Donghyuck’s car. It was cool through Donghyuck’s heated strands of hair, having pulled the cap off once he’d settled into the car, and he tapped his fingers along the wheel as conversation flitted through the vehicle.

Excitement seemed to lace Chenle as he bounced forward on the seat, shouting over the wail of breeze into the ears of Mark and Donghyuck. “I want a cookies and cream donut,” he giggled and Mark nodded, turning back to face the pair seated in the back.

“It’s my favorite,” Donghyuck studied the excitement that laced Mark’s face with a fond grin before quickly turning his gaze back toward the road. His chest warmed with Mark’s laughter and he tightened his hands over the steering wheel. His skin tingled as Mark brushed his arm to straighten himself forward in his seat and he smiled toward the boy.

“Anything with cookies and cream is your favorite,” he quipped and Mark giggled, a tickle blooming in his throat with the tightening of his chest at the sound. He coughed softly and straightened once more.

“I have taste,” Mark nudged Donghyuck and he rolled his eyes against the slight tremor that wracked his fingers momentarily.

“What cake did buy, Donghyuck?” Jisung piped in from behind him and Donghyuck felt his cheeks flush slightly despite the cooling wind. He hesitated a moment with a sulk before plastering a small pout over his lips.

“Cookies and cream,” he mumbled and Mark giggled alongside Chenle’s loud guffaw.

“You’re so considerate,” Chenle teased and Donghyuck found his eyes rolled again with a sneer.

“You all will be the ones eating it anyway so I figured I couldn’t go wrong with a huge cookies and cream donut,” Donghyuck shrugged, turning into the small parking lot and switching his gear to park the car. With the sudden halting of wind flitting through the car heat began to seep in heavily, resting in Donghyuck’s nose as he gazed up to the pale blue sky, his eyes squinted against the sunlight.

“Thank you, Hyuck,” the younger turned to Mark and was met with a grin and tilted him head in question, “for buying us a cake.”

“You act as if I won’t be eating it too,” Donghyuck scoffed before tugging Mark’s arms away from the silver car, sun reflecting blindingly off the slick surface. The elder groaned and tried to lightly shove him off but he grasped him tightly with a loud laugh.

Donghyuck glanced over the small lining of trees that lay around the donut shop, standing below the cover that hung over the small picnic tables, and studied the leaves. They’d darkened with the approach of summer, no longer the bright shade of spring but the deep shade that greeted the forest with the summertime heat. The soft breeze that went unnoticeable in the blister of sunshine hanging directly over them with its height in the sky rustled the branches that lay high over the ground.

The cars that flew past added to the dull roar of heat, the groan that accompanied nature’s temperature flitting through Donghyuck’s ears as he grinned at his surroundings. The air was gauzy with the humidity but the boy had always found he liked the way it seemed to cling to his clothes and submerge him in unavoidable warmth. He longed for the cool slick of condensation on a glass of water that drowned his hands from the gaze of bronzed sun and to sink into the soft pool that lay a walk away from his home.

Even in the sultriest days of summer, Donghyuck liked to stand in the quivering heat with a sweet sweat that slickened his brow and stickied his skin. Warmth was home.

Donghyuck slipped through the swinging glass door into the air conditioned room of the small shop. He approached the trio that stood before the counter, wallets in hand as they pointed to individual donuts that lay behind the glass counter. Donghyuck stood behind them with a fond expression.

The group stole to Jeno’s car with the arrival of their orders, relishing in the cooling that flittered through the closed windows as they chewed the soft donuts. Jeno’s car was the largest of the group, though still rather small to accompany the seven boys that huddled inside. Donghyuck found himself perched over Chenle’s lap as Jisung laid across the floor with a scowl to the constant shove of Jaemin’s feet against him, dirt scuffing his light shirt.

Jeno scrolled his hand through music on his phone as Mark perched his back against the dashboard of the car, his feet curled below him on the seat. Donghyuck glanced out the window as he ate, watching the small birds that grazed the crumbs of the parking lot, black asphalt sending waves of heat radiating through the air.

“Are you excited to leave, Donghyuck?” the boy turned his gaze to Jeno’s smile before clashing his eyes with Mark’s instinctually. His expression was soft, his mouth twisted to the side slightly in consideration and Donghyuck turned back to the other quickly.

“A little bit now, yeah,” he smiled as he spoke, bringing his index upward to bite the skin there, finding it sweet and sticky with the glazing of his donut that he’d shifted to hold in the other palm.

“You weren’t before?” Jisung asked from the floor and Donghyuck’s mouth twitched.

“Just nervous of the change, is all,” he shrugged and avoided the familiar dark eyes that remained trained over him, settling to meet Jeno’s instead. The boy offered him a bright smile, his eyes disappearing into a crinkle.

“I want to graduate,” Chenle groaned and the rest chuckled lightly, Jaemin tapping his shoulder in a light push.

“It’s your last year now,” Jaemin shrugged and Chenle grinned as he muttered about it being the final stretch.

Donghyuck flicked his eyes to Mark as he began to giggle, clapping loudly with a slap to the fabric seats of Jeno’s car as the others joked. His face was blushed with the summer heat and laughter, his eyes glistening in joy. A small crumb of the crushed chocolate cookie lay stuck to his lip with the glaze of his pastry and Donghyuck felt himself itch to brush it away softly.

The boy met Donghyuck’s gaze and he flicked his eyes away from the other’s lips, turning with a sudden interest in studying his hands as Chenle shifted below him, knocking him slightly askew from where he balanced himself over his legs.

He felt his cheeks heat slightly, a red bloom of roses dusting his bronzed skin tone, and he tilted his head down, his bangs falling to mask his expression. His hands tremored slightly with the heat of the elder’s gaze and he clenched his toes within the pair of dress shoes he’d laced over them.

“We should be heading out,” Renjun softly spoke, tugging Jaemin from beside him as he propped open the car door. Heat flooded the vehicle and beamed over Donghyuck. “I still need to pick some things up from the store to make dinner.”

“What time will you head over to mine?” Donghyuck wondered and Jaemin responded for Renjun.

“We’ll come slightly early to cook – how’s four?”

Donghyuck nodded and mumbled a goodbye with the others before piping up to the others, “Alright, I should head out too,” he turned to Jeno, “can you bring those two home since they’re a bit a ways away from my house? I need to get there soon for family.”

Jeno nodded and Donghyuck crumpled his napkin as Mark stepped from the car. Donghyuck slipped from the back seat and started toward his own vehicle, parked only a few spots down. Mark’s hand brushed his own as he hurried to walk beside him.

Donghyuck hurried to open his car window, the wind cooling his colored skin.

The yellow glow of Donghyuck’s lamp painted his skin golden in the dim glow of his room. A large bowl of chips rested beside him, poured from the bowl and left to grow stale in the after effects of his graduation party. He dug his hand into it, scrolling through his computer with a fist clenched in his hair, elbow rested on the desk.

His window was propped open, his parents’ consistent refusal to turn on the air conditioning strong despite the heat of late May evenings. A loose cotton t-shirt draped over his frame, accompanied by a loose pair of basketball shorts that kept him cool with the heat that breathed down his back. He could hear a grouping of toads croaking over each other, ringing noise through his house and laying an atmosphere of summer comfort over him.

A smooth breeze flitted through the window, its screen blowing with the gust and preventing the arrival of mosquitoes into his room. He glanced away from the bright light of his computer screen that shone onto his face, adjusting his eyes as he gazed into his yard.

With a sigh he leaned back and rubbed his eyes roughly. He shut the lid of his laptop and stood from the uncomfortable desk chair with a whine, stretching his limbs upward as a soft crack resounded through the room. His phone began to ring and he reached for it.

“I’m coming back over,” Donghyuck could hear the movement of Mark’s walking through the phone call and he nodded to himself.

“Hello – yes, this is Donghyuck. I’m well, how are you?” Mark muttered an apology as Donghyuck teased and he bent his neck, letting it crack as he set it over his own shoulder. “I’ll just run down and unlock the door, you can let yourself in.”

“Okay,” Donghyuck clicked his phone off without a dismissal, tossing it onto the nearly stripped bare bed. He’d removed the surplus of blankets with the reproach of heat and it looked solemn in its naked form.

The stairs creaked below Donghyuck and he glanced toward the darkened doorway of his parents’ room. With the snap of the handle’s lock, Donghyuck turned back toward the stairs and bounded carefully upward in silence. The door opened just moments after he’d settled himself against his headboard once more and he looked up from his phone, butterflies of nerves fluttering rapidly in his stomach.

“Hey,” he whispered as the elder slid the door shut behind him. He grinned as he glanced up to Donghyuck’s relaxed form.

“How have you been?”

“Since three hours ago? Pretty well,” Donghyuck chuckled and turned his eyes back to the screen of his phone, reading the email he’d trained his eyes upon.

“I’m glad,” Mark rustled the chips within the bowl that sat on Donghyuck’s desk, grappling with a handful before lazing onto the foot of the bed. The younger couldn’t find it in himself to mind the crumbs. “Why’d you stay up?”

Donghyuck shrugged, setting his cell down and tugging at the strands of hair that rested messily over his forehead. “I was playing games for a while.”

Mark nodded, his jaw clenching with the crunch of chips over his molars. Donghyuck leaned forward and snatched one from where the boy cradled them within his palm, dodging the swat that had been directed toward him with the thievery. Mark settled back onto the bed and watched the younger as he munched thoughtfully.

“Are you happy you’ve graduated?”

Donghyuck smiled softly and met his probing gaze with a soft nod and nose of affirmation, “It was nice.”

“Are you still nervous?”

Donghyuck shrugged, “Lesser so than I have been in the past.”

“I still suppose that’s good,” Mark said with a bemused tone and Donghyuck nodded his head rapidly, the fluff of hair he’d pushed back flopping into his eyes.

“I’m happy with it,” he raised his shoulders again, “it still all scares me but I think I’m more ready to go off on my own.”

“You’ll like college, Hyuckie,” Mark smiled and Donghyuck raised his brows slightly with amusement.

“Oh yeah?”

“I’m sure. It’ll all be good for you,” he turned his head back to the ceiling, “and even with your college being far away I’ll still be there for you – and all the others,” Mark laughed to himself. “We’re all proud of you, Hyuck.”

“For being smart enough to get into a private college?” he laughed and Mark rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, but also for being able to push yourself to go places alone.”

Donghyuck slid further down the headboard with a soft sigh, “If I’m brave enough to leave.”

“You’ll be fine,” Mark laughed. The two had never mentioned how Donghyuck’s leaving would affect the elder and his constant coming to the younger’s house. Donghyuck knew Mark didn’t need the place to stay, he was plenty comfortable with his own home only a walking distance away and he had his own dorm on the college campus, and yet it’d been years since the two had begun to spend their nights together and Mark had continued to appear.

Donghyuck wasn’t the only one affected by the change of routine.

“I’m sure,” he smiled, leaving his thoughts hidden, and straightened from the bed to approach the light switch of his lamp. “I think I’ll sleep now,” he stated and grabbed another handful of chips to shove into his mouth. Donghyuck flicked the lights off and fumbled through the dark to get to his mattress.

The sudden submersion into darkness had settled a new cool over the room, the dark accompanied by the night breezes that curled into the air. Despite the lowered temperatures of night, the mattress remained warm as Donghyuck settled a knee onto it, sliding further in the bed before falling onto his back.

The mattress dipped beside him and Donghyuck’s breath hitched quietly with the heavy arms that looped over his waist. The locking of their bodies together shouted of intimacy, leaving Donghyuck lightheaded as he clenched his eyes closed. Exhaustion set in, broken only with the desperate pounding of his chest. His skin prickled with the heat that engulfed him but he couldn’t bring himself to shove away, a soft sweat beginning to lace him.

Moonlight shone across the bare bed, spreading like liquid over their intertwined forms and elegantly framing their skin in shades of drastic coloration – silvery ivory and golden bronze. Donghyuck’s stomach bubbled with the nerves that ebbed into him, the summery feel of their forms springing wet to his eyes. He clenched his hands into fists where they rested over the mattress before him.

Mark held Donghyuck’s back tight to his chest, thumbing circles over the exposed skin of his wrist and springing goosebumps over his body. The heat of the elder’s breath traced over his neck, warmth tickling him into a frenzy of drunken haze. Donghyuck’s own breathing was hushed in the dark, the nape of his neck tingling.

Donghyuck’s eyes stung with the tangling of Mark’s legs in his own, unable to feel the separation of his own body from the other’s. The wave of air across his neck began to slow, the fingers that traced over his wrist slackening and releasing the fabric of his cotton t-shirt from their grasp.

A soft draft tickled the hair across Donghyuck’s temple, flicking it into his eyes, and sang a soft lullaby into the roaring of his ears. Sleep began to clutch him as the form that curled around him began to mumble softly.

Starlight cradled their soft embrace.


	2. slippery sea salt and rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hidden emotions in a small beach house don’t bode well

iv.

The car was filled with a dull murmur as Donghyuck rested his head against the glass window. It vibrated with the engine of the car, jostling him slightly with each bump and numbing his cheek.

The sun had barely begun to peer over the horizon, the sky painted a dull blue and gray with the dark of dawn harnessing it. Light shades of yellow and warm orange slid subtly where the light of day had slowly begun to peak out, signaling the familiar beginning of morning.

Donghyuck cracked an eye open to focus over the colors of sunrise as fatigue continued to nip at him, his lids heavy as he continuously wrenched them wide. He watched the transforming of dark, the trees black in the night sky, to luminous shades of warmth, pinkish tangerines smashed over the palette. With the flirtatious sunrise the world bloomed vibrantly in the early light.

With a yawn the boy pushed his head from where it rested over the window, the blur of trees out of focus from the wet of his tired eyes. The car was heavy with silence, an occasional mumble of drowse and silent whispers breaking the quietude. The radio had been shut out and the sound of the vehicle’s insistent hum of motion surrounded them with murk.

Renjun tapped the steering wheel in the row ahead of him, his eyes torn open despite the dark below them. He steered the large vehicle, borrowed from his mother to accommodate the seven boys, in silence. Donghyuck watched his eyes flicker occasionally to the passing landscapes, focusing on their surroundings to prevent his fatigue from pulling him into a stupor of highway hypnosis. He leaned forward over the middle console and rested his head against the passenger seat, occupied by a drifting Jaemin.

“What time is it?” he whispered in a hush, answering his own question as he glanced to the digital clock set into the dashboard.

“Early,” Jaemin mumbled, leaning back onto his headrest with shut eyes.

Renjun flicked his eyes to the younger boy with a subtle fondness before nudging Donghyuck’s hunched form in mirth, “Happy Birthday, Hyuckie.”

Donghyuck yawned in response and nodded his head, digging in the car door for his phone. “I feel like the past-,” Donghyuck counted backward in his head, “six hours have been a fever dream.” The group of teenagers had slept nearly the entire day prior, leaving to drive late the past night so as to arrive with the entirety of a day ahead of them. They still had over an hour before they’d arrive at the little beach house their parents had rented out as a graduation present. Donghyuck had never been allowed so far without his family.

“I’ve been awake the whole time,” Jaemin smirked, puffing his cheeks out to curb his exhaustion.

“I sincerely doubt that,” Donghyuck spoke with his eyes closed. His tone remained hushed, the entirety of the car submerged in a silent sleep, and he stretched his arms forward, knocking Jaemin’s head slightly. The younger swatted at him.

“He definitely drifted off for over two hours,” Renjun cackled, gesticulating with a hand toward the silent radio over the dashboard, “I had to turn on the news to keep awake.”

Jaemin pouted as he glared to the eldest, a small pout toying over him. “It was less than two hours, and you _told_ me to,” he bemoaned and Donghyuck snickered.

He considered how he’d slept, his mind drifting consistently while his eyes remained snapped shut. He hadn’t remembered the moments when he drifted between a state of subconscious and wakefulness, but he was aware he hadn’t remained alert the entirety of the drive. He’d risen with the light that blinded his right facing window, the sun burning into his eyelids.

“I don’t suppose we have any snacks left?” Donghyuck glanced over the bottom of the car, hoping to catch sight of the box of crackers they’d prepared for the long drive.

“I think Jisung’s holding the crackers in his sleep, but we’ve some gummies up here,” Renjun lowered himself slightly, one hand on the wheel while the other fished beside him. He produced a crinkling blue packet and the younger took it from him quietly, a muttered ‘thanks’ shot through the once more unbroken silence.

He ripped the packet open and shoveled a few of the soft fruits into his mouth, humming as it washed away the taste of sleep and settled warmly in his aching gut.

"I hope it’ll be warmer there then it is home,” Donghyuck mumbled around the gummies, his eyes trained on the straight road ahead. White dotted lines slipped beside the car and the green of trees seemed to speed up to a blur as they became closer with the car’s drift.

“I don’t. It’s hot enough at home,” Renjun said, his hand reaching to flick the volume nob of the radio and produce a soft whisper of gibberish.

“You’re just scared it’ll melt your cold soul,” Donghyuck whispered with a grin as the elder rolled his eyes with exasperation.

“Devilry seems to suit you well, Donghyuck,” Jaemin mocked and turned his head to glance down at the boy’s brown hair, his chin rested over his folded arms on the middle divider, “shouldn’t you be kinder on your birthday though?”

“And isn’t it your heart that’s cold?” Renjun added, lifting a hand from where it slumped over the wheel to flick his forehead.

“I’m a-.”

“-Ray of sunshine,” the two finished and Donghyuck smirked. He hummed in response and bobbed his head.

Donghyuck leaned back into his seat, glancing to the window. The constraints of the car were almost claustrophobic as he stared to the array of trees that held no specific pattern – no significance of landmark. The sun had fully burned away the dark, a pale blue blanketing directly above but a brandishing of peach and amber radiating in streaks from the bright star that rose; colors of lust – ones that left the red car a mere silhouette in the passionate display of light.

The brush of air that flew from the vents of the car spewed over Donghyuck’s skin, cooling the areas that burned with the patches of heady sunlight spilling in pools through the windows. He rested his head against the shoulder of his chair, a yawn closing his eyes from the comforting view of daybreak.

“I have to take an exit soon.”

“It’s supposed to rain this afternoon,” Jaemin scrolled through his phone as he tugged open the trunk, clicking it off as he reached into the compartment to grab a few duffels the others had packed. Jeno had his arms wrapped around Donghyuck’s waist, his eyes still closed against the day shine that surrounded the small vacation home and head rested over the younger’s shoulder.

Renjun closed the side door of the car, having fished out the few bags they’d stuffed below the seats. The four boys who hadn’t been previously awake, roused by the sounds of Jaemin’s excitement at seeing the sea, still huddled into themselves, rubbing sleep from their squinted eyes.

“We can explore this morning, it’s only seven thirty,” Renjun grabbed his bag from Jaemin’s hands and tucked an arm into his, “and then just stay in if it storms – make dinner, maybe? We could stop by that small store we saw,” he gestured his hand back toward the gravel path they’d arrived from.

Donghyuck grabbed his own bag and Jeno’s from the younger’s outstretched hand, rolling his eyes as he shifted them both over his left shoulder with Jeno’s sleepy grumble, “I’ll come with,” he looked toward the couple and they smiled at him.

The small huddle of boys ventured forward, their feet slipping over the path with the unsteady rocks, and Donghyuck let his eyes wander to the trees that blocked the entirety of the relentless sun. A cleared path broke through the tree line, presumably leading to a small, private outcrop of rock and beach, separate from the public one they’d passed on the final stretch of the drive.

“What should we make?” Renjun’s own eyes flickered around as he spoke, absorbing the unfamiliar surroundings of the more tropical weather.

Jaemin considered a moment before piping in, “I think we should wait until Chenle’s not half asleep and ask him; he’ll want to help.”

“It’s his own fault for being out of it,” Donghyuck shot back with a grin, “we should make a shepherd’s pie and give him puff pastry duty.”

“We’ll never get to eat then,” Renjun raised an eyebrow, “puff pastry is _hard_.”

Donghyuck shook his head lightly, jostling Jeno as the elder dragged his legs and remained latched to him. “That’s the point, Junnie, make him _struggle_.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes to the back of his head quickly and his lips curved into a soft smile, “We might as well plan the whole week,” the youngest fished his phone from his pocket once more, “that way we only have to go to the store the one time.”

“I change my mind,” Donghyuck turned to the two pairs of brown eyes directed toward him, “you both can cook for me. I’m the birthday boy.”

Renjun scowled and slipped away from the taller’s side to lightly shove Donghyuck’s shoulder. A bag slipped from where it hung limply and Jeno stumbled, knocking Donghyuck’s jaw with the crown of his head.

“Hey, you brat!” Donghyuck lunged forward, fully shedding Jeno (and the duffel bags) from where he was fumbling to grab hold of him, and shoved a fist into the elder’s hair, knuckling the top of his head. With a yelp Renjun tugged forward, trying to duck away from the headlock he’d been pulled into. Donghyuck ran his fingers up Renjun’s sides, laughing loudly as the boy contorted and pinched him in retaliation. Donghyuck shoved away from the boy breathlessly, amicable and high-pitched laughter flitting between them. Renjun turned to Jaemin, the younger’s face blooming with a wide beam.

“How are you just going to stand there when I’m being _attacked_ ,” Renjun bit out, approaching the side of the taller before he pushed a finger into his gut.

Donghyuck glanced to Jeno as he piped in, rubbing the top of his head, “I feel quite dejected as well,” Donghyuck laughed at the black haired boy, his eyes fully awake after having been shoved around in the midst of the two’s scuffle.

Renjun left Jaemin’s side with a pout and soft nod, lifting his hand to in approval as Jeno high-fived it with his own. Donghyuck smirked and pointed to his chin as he jutted it forward.

“You’re the one who knocked my chin.”

“I was practically _shoved_ , Donghyuck,” Jeno groaned pointing to Renjun’s apologetic scowl.

“You have a big forehead,” Donghyuck prodded and Jeno raised his hand in a poised swat. Donghyuck giggled and hopped to Jaemin’s side. He wondered if they’d all be home for each of his birthdays – despite the distance his college would be from where home _was_.

Donghyuck didn’t want them to grow apart as they did old.

The group reached the end of the path, each one notably more awake with the distant trek to the small beach house, and stumbled up the few steps and onto the small porch. Renjun pressed his thumb into his phone and flipped the screen open, reading a few numbers off his notes before entering them into the padlock. It snapped open and the boy grappled with the key inside.

The door swung open and Donghyuck stepped in. It was hot, the air having not been running to conserve energy between renters and he set the bag beside the off-white couch that rested just within the door, the front door opening immediately into the small living room.

Donghyuck scanned the framed photographs that hung over the otherwise blank, white walls. They were cuts of the beach, white foam washing over waves and cliffs and close ups of sea glass and shells in bright shades of turquoise blues and greens. Donghyuck turned to the boys that filed into the room with a bright beam.

“Birthday boy says beach.”

The water was cold over Donghyuck’s feet despite the stifling humidity that clung over their figures in the heat. Donghyuck could see the distant clouds that hung over the horizon, dark and heavy with droplets that longed to spill onto the water in clashes of lightening and booming thunder.

His t-shirt clung to his wet figure, pale and translucent in the still bright sun of midday. His hair dripped with salt, striking in soft droplets onto his shoulders that sent shivers up his spine, and he turned to the boy that stood beside him, a bright smiling curving his heart shaped lips widely.

Mark arched a small eyebrow, a smirk dancing over his lips with the younger’s gleeful expression. His own dark hair was dry; the droplets that slicked his calves and shined the skin remained the only wet that coated him as he stood in the constant push of waves. Donghyuck lifted his slicked hands upward, sending water flying to the boy who flinched away, and he giggled, bounding deeper into the water.

The sun beamed in a constant kiss over the younger’s tanned, coppery skin and he stroked the surface of the water with a light caress of finger tips, breaking the surface to dip his heated hands into the cool liquid. His eyes stung with the salt water and the taste parched his tongue as it dropped from his nose onto his bright grin.

The break of waves pushed against his hips, sending him stumbling forward with each pulse and laughing wildly. Mark remained where he stood.

Donghyuck straightened once more, springing through the heavy water with a movement that felt slowed from the wet weight. Mark watched him with sparkling eyes, glinting in the sunlight with amusement. The younger boy clasped a wet hand over the elder’s and tugged lightly.

Mark laughed and remained unmoving. “Come swim,” Donghyuck whined, towing him gently forward. Mark shook his head with a small smile. The younger pouted as he continued to pull, bending his own knees lower and dunking further into the water in an effort to tug him in.

“Markie,” he bemoaned, stumbling back as the other let go of his palm suddenly. He almost slipped into the water but regained his footing with a deep frown. Donghyuck charged forward suddenly with a glare, wrapping his arms tightly over the boy’s small frame and lifting upward.

“Hyuck,” Mark groaned, trying to shove his forearms away as he was lifted from his feet. Donghyuck walked forward, deeper into the water that licked his hips and lifted his cotton shirt to float over its surface.

Donghyuck giggled, bending his knees and dunking the elder underneath the wave as he yelped to the cold. He slipped his arms away and emerged from below the water, a wide grin dripping with wet as the other broke free with a soft gasp.

“It’s cold,” Mark whined, wrapping his arms around himself with a grumble. Donghyuck began to squabble as the other lunged for him, gripping onto his shoulders and dipping him into the salty sea once more. His shouts were warbled to mumbles beneath the surface and he thrashed against Mark. The elder pulled him up, looping his hands around the other’s with a smirk.

Donghyuck knitted his brows together in petulance, grumbling out, “You almost _killed_ me, you pillock.”

“ _Pillock_?” Mark’s voice was shrill with laughter and Donghyuck could vaguely hear the obnoxious laughter of the others as he wiped the salt from his eyes, squinting through the tears that sprung with the itch. He took note of the dulled sounds in his right ear, muffled with the blockage of water that had rushed into it.

Mark removed Donghyuck’s hands from where they swiped over his eyes, only spreading the burn further with each rub.

“Ninnyhammer.”

Mark snorted, “Got any more?”

“Simpleton,” he grumbled, splashing water toward the elder who struggled to grasp him once more –to prevent the onslaught of attacks. “Neanderthal.”

“I like that one –it’s fitting,” Renjun shouted and Mark flashed him a middle finger.

Donghyuck lifted his fingers to rub away the water droplets the clung to his short lashes once more and Mark interlocked their fingers quickly. “You’re only making it worse,” he muttered, pulling his hands down once more. Donghyuck’s palms itched with the added warmth and he leaned slightly away from the older, his pulse jumping at the affectionate notion of their clasped hands.

Renjun shouted to the joined pair as Donghyuck found his heart racing, his eyes searching vigorously for something to focus on –anything to settle his eyes away from the smiling boy before him.

“I think we should start to head back,” Donghyuck settled his eyes on his distant figure, “it looks like it’ll rain any minute,” he gestured to the nearing clouds as the beach darkened. Mark tugged him forward toward the sand and the younger followed lazily, staring to the ominous puff of storm that approached. A sheet of dark filled the horizon, coating below the cumulonimbus clouds with the visible torrent of pour.

It was still blistering in heat, no sudden change in temperature with the oncoming clouds, and the ocean still lapped cheerfully against Donghyuck’s heels as he left behind the cool water. The skies, however, had darkened to a drastic shade of gloom. Clouds eclipsed the sun’s light, transitioning the world into a constant shadow, and a soft breeze started to stir the still air of prior.

Still, Donghyuck grinned, his eyes trained over the silvery clouds that commanded the skies. The darkened puffs oozed closer as molten rock, speedily enrapturing the sunshine into a dark of downpour. The boy giggled as a droplet splattered onto the bridge of his nose.

The storm held no lightning, the weight of rain plummeting down in an instant as bullets, resounding in a howl of wild melody. Donghyuck ran forward with childlike laughter, spinning brilliantly under the surge of afternoon showers. He held his hand to the side, watching the small droplets pool in orbs of glistening transparency. It serenaded the gravel below with its pound, prickling Donghyuck’s skin as he grinned and tilted his head upward. A hand clasped his own.

Donghyuck glanced to Mark’s drenched figure, a frozen laugh on his own face as he tugged the boy forward. The pair ran together up the dampened sand, feet slipping beneath them, and followed after the others who infiltrated the scream of the storm with their own ringing laughter. Mark tugged Donghyuck into a spin as the younger giggled, his skin cooled with the kiss of droplets and glossy with wet.

Donghyuck settled to gaze over the elder; his eyes were squinted with joy and chest heaving air wildly with laughter. His ivory skin glowed blue in the shadowy cover of clouds, glistening with wet and dark hair stringing over his crinkled forehead. He grinned to the younger as he pulled him into another twirl, his roar of chuckles burning warmth in Donghyuck’s stomach and pushing his breathing unsteady. His body felt numb as he spun around the elder, his skin slippery and cooled with the splendorous rain.

“You’ll make a rainbow with that smile, sunshine.”

v.

Donghyuck scrubbed the towel through his hair as he stepped from the shower. Pellets of rain still rang across the roof in a serenade from the skies, hissing with its soothing repeat of pounding. The mirror of the small bathroom was fogged, heat clouding the air and spreading condensation to slip down the cool glass in beads of water.

He was quick to dress comfortably, the house having quieted with the settling of night, and stepped from the steamed room, towel draped over his arm in an effort to find a space to lay it dry. He stepped into the small bedroom; one of two in the house, the other holding a fold out bed and the couch that inhabited the living room having been flipped into a makeshift bed; and approached his small bag, reaching in to fish out the glasses case he’d packed.

He slipped the pair onto his face and stepped toward the curtained window. The sun had long since set, black enveloping the green of trees and coating the sky in a mass of galaxies. Donghyuck set himself down on the already unmade bed with a soft yawn as it sighed under his weight.

The door beside him opened and he glanced to the elder that walked in; round glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and bedhead in full bloom over his forehead. His hair was still slightly damp from his own shower, though it had dried significantly in the amount of time Donghyuck had spent away. He lifted a hand with a wiggle and the elder smiled back at him.

Donghyuck trailed his eyes over Mark as he approached the bed, seating himself on the opposite side of the mattress with his body turned away. He flicked his eyes back out the window.

The cooling filled the silent room with its obnoxious rasp and Donghyuck bent forward, resting his chin on the flattened hand as his elbows dug into his knees. His eyes drooped closed momentarily as he perched in the relaxed position.

“How was your birthday,” Donghyuck startled and glanced up, looking to the boy who lay beside him.

“Would’ve been better with different people,” the younger grinned as the other rolled his eyes, flicking at Donghyuck’s exposed, upper arm. “No, but, in all honesty – thank you.”

Mark cocked a brow in succession to the tilt of his head, “For what?”

Donghyuck shrugged, lifting his hand to scratch across his shoulder. The sleeve of his shirt folded sloppily. “Thank you for coming with us – and the present,” Donghyuck gestured to the travel guide that lay perched over his duffel with a laugh, “now I can explore without fear of getting lost.”

Mark laughed as Donghyuck added a wink, “I thought it’d help with getting acquainted to the city alone,” the elder lifted his hand and straightened Donghyuck’s short sleeve, grazing the skin as he pulled it downward.

“I’m sure it will,” Donghyuck scrunched his nose with a teasing grin, “-and that homemade cake, that I’m _positive_ I didn’t see you pick up from the store early today,” Mark cackled noisily, “ _scrumptious_.”

The elder shot him a quick thumbs-up, “I’m a _pâtissier_.”

“ _Boulanger_ ,” Donghyuck corrected, tapping Mark over the nose. The other flinched away and brushed off the tip of his nose with a groan.

“Alright, sunshine,” Donghyuck narrowed his eyes at the pet name the elder spouted, shaking a finger mockingly. A light thunderclap shocked Donghyuck’s eyes wide as he drifted his gaze to where the downpour drenched the ground to black. Light flashed brightly through the parted curtains, blisteringly bright as it cut through the pitch dark of the storm.

“How long would you say it’s been raining?” Donghyuck’s brows were furrowed, his voice directed to the elder but he remained turned toward the window. He lifted his hand to nip at his index, a habit that replaced his need to worry his lip.

“Well, since we left the beach,” Mark twisted his body to glanced over the analog clock that rested over the small end table, “-nine hours, though it stopped for a little around dinner.”

Donghyuck nodded, lifting himself to step closer to the window. Despite the torrential downpour of orchestrated rain, the wind remained slow, the screen of the window billowing softly with the wet that clung to it – not whipping as he’d expect in such a deluge.

“I think I’d like to go back out,” the boy turned suddenly, a wide grin sprawling over his expression. The yellow glow set his tanned skin golden, his beam reflecting the sun’s light despite its being tucked away and masked by the storm. His cheeks were flushed with the sudden spurt of excitement that wrenched through him.

“Duckie, it’s thunder and lightning out there,” Mark’s eyebrows were cocked, his eyes widened in amusement and disbelief.

“Do I look like a metal pole,” the boy gestured to himself as the other cackled with a scrunched nose, “besides, you’re taller than me – if anyone got struck it’d be you.”

“You do look a little coppery,” Mark gestured to the boy’s darkened skin, glowing a red bronze in the dim lamps, and giggled at the finger Donghyuck returned.

Donghyuck crossed his arms, looking once more to the darkened night filled with flood. The indigo that drenched the world of green was breathtaking in its enthralling consumption. He felt a tad bit weak, the fatigue of his little sleep pulling him down, but the dark palette that seized the world behind his window captivated him. The wet of the forest seemed to be filled with an insistent harpy, unavoidable and needy as it pulled him toward it.

“It’s still my birthday,” he whined, a pout playing with his tone and jutting his bottom lip outward. He pulled it back in to chew on it pleadingly. Mark scowled.

“Don’t chew your lip, you’ll cut it up.”

Donghyuck stomped a foot with a grunt, “Markie, come outside with me.”

“We’ve already showered, Hyuck,” Mark flopped backward, raising his arms above his head to study where his fingers played together.

“It’ll just be like another shower,” Donghyuck pleaded, jumping onto the bed beside the elder with a grunt. Mark shoved away with the other’s insistent touch, grumbling about how the rain was dirty. Donghyuck tugged over Mark’s shirt, gripping the other pitifully with cries of persuasion.

“Fine,” Donghyuck pouted, lurching backward with a sigh of resignation, “I’ll go myself.”

He lifted himself from the fluff of comforter, stumbling from the room as Mark called softly to him. He sulked as he approached the doorway until he reached the hall, scrambling quickly forward in secrecy to keep quiet for the others. A hand tugged over his bare wrist and he jolted.

“Alright, Hyuckie,” he beamed up to the slightly taller, “but only for a minute – you’ll get sick or slip.”

Donghyuck pulled the other forward, sliding over the hardwood in his socked feet with a silenced giggle. He slipped into the kitchen and slammed into counter, suppressing a wild laugh with his palm as he barreled his hip into the edge. Mark grappled for the shorter’s waist in worry and Donghyuck pulled away with the tickle that bloomed over the aforementioned area.

The cake remained resting on the countertop, covered by the plastic lid and sliced generously. Donghyuck snapped it open, wincing with the loud bang that reverberated through the barren kitchen, and glanced to the gingham couch Chenle laid sprawled across, a light blanket covering him (sans the small, sockless foot that curled with the noise).

“What’re you doing?” Mark whispered. His eyes trained over the darkened figure of Chenle, his black hair mussed and splayed over the white pillow he clutched. Donghyuck angled his body to cover the cake with a giggle. He swiped a finger into the icing, pulling a leg of the letter ‘k’ onto his index before flipping himself around quickly. He pushed his finger into the elder’s cheek with a suppressed giggle and bounded away.

Hurried footsteps followed the younger as he scurried away, grumbles ringing from the elder’s low tone as Donghyuck latched onto the front door. He flicked the lock and flung the door wide.

The rain beat harshly over the beige concrete of the vacation home’s porch, staining it rich brown with water. Donghyuck stepped into the downpour with a wide grin. The droplets penetrated the dry of his skin rapidly, beating harsher than in the hours prior and sending a chill through him. The damp of his freshly washed hair deepened, stringing the bangs to hang limply over his temples and into his eyes.

Donghyuck glanced up, rocking his head back to stare into the severe downpour. The blue drops enlarged as they drew closer to his skin, splashing across his cheeks and crawling in a slow drip that tickled. They seemed to appear from nothingness; the dark, clouded sky an abyss of pure ebony.

The rumble of thunder groaned across the sky, distant and low, before a flash of light infiltrated the dark. White lightning faded to pale lavender and painted the sky a hoary blue. It appeared a work of kintsugi, cracks in the obsidian sky mended with silver powder and resin – broken, yet beautiful in its repairs.

A pair of arms wrapped around Donghyuck’s chest and he yelped, nearly knocking his head on the arms that surrounded him. Mark rubbed his cheek – marred by the white of cake frosting – across Donghyuck’s own, the younger thrashing away with the brush. The icing slathered over Donghyuck and he groaned as he wiped it away, the wet that coated his cheek worsening the smear. He set a tongue into the watered down sweet that played over his fingertips and he grinned at Mark’s disgusted sneer.

“That was on my cheek, Donghyuck.”

Mark was shrouded in the dark of the storm, his black hair disheveled with the run of his hands and haloing him despite the rain that pounded it flat. His voice was shouted over the wail of heavy rain, random flashes of lightning coloring his figure blue.

“And now it’s on mine,” Donghyuck pointed to the slight smudge of white that ran over his golden skin in the bucketing water. Despite its being washed away, the milky cream was vibrant and drastic over his features.

The younger boy’s legs felt loose as he stepped backward onto the gravel, fatigue from the kick of swimming wearing them thin. He spun to face the blackened forest and glanced to the leaved treetops. They glistened even through the dark, drizzled and sleek with water. They appeared glossy and plastic –coated in lacquer.

“Why’d you want to come out here,” Mark shouted to the entranced boy. Donghyuck smirked.

“It’s beautiful,” he gestured to the glistening trees that lit up with each lightning strike, similar to a firecracker on Independence Day. Donghyuck didn’t like fireworks just as he didn’t like the shock a crack of thunder sent through him. “And it’s fun,” he accentuated his point with a giggle, kicking at the pools of rainwater that clung to the dips of gravel. It rippled with each tap of his toe.

“It’s not like it’s something you’ve never seen before, sunshine,” Mark grinned.

“Doesn’t make it any less exciting,” Donghyuck cracked a wider smile as he spread his arms, basking in the feel of warm raindrops.

“I thought you like the sun and heat.”

Donghyuck considered the elder with a squinted eye. His eyes were slanted with his soft smile, an eyebrow quirked in bemusement and curiosity. He wasn’t completely wrong – Donghyuck was one to prefer the sunshine and splintering heat of late summer, but the steam that rose off asphalt with the cooling rain sent Donghyuck’s gut stirring with excitement. The increase of humidity that fogged the lens of his glasses and settled heavily over his tongue screamed summer to Donghyuck; it shouted of the warmth that continued to shroud him even with the precipitation.

“Is this not hot to you?” Donghyuck giggled, the warm droplets coating his arms with sheen.

Mark’s eyebrows drew together in amusement and he lifted his hand toward the sky, “I’m going to assume to you mean the rain. Otherwise – no.”

Donghyuck rolled his eyes and shot a crude gesture to the elder.

The elder grabbed onto Donghyuck’s extended wrist and twirled him – similarly to his gesture on the beach. The younger’s chuckle rang loudly over the pouring rain, laughter flitting over him as he danced on wetted ground.

The pair glimmered together like celestial bodies in the sky; the moon reflecting the sun’s expelled light in fits of joy and beauty, eclipsing in a beguiling dance of beauty.

Donghyuck latched his slicked hands over Mark’s wrists, tugging him to dance in a circle. The pair swung together, laughter drowned in the storm and faces of joy slicked with water. Donghyuck’s stomach felt uneasy and his chest tight with the intimacy they cradled, their clasped hands and the feet that knocked together in the hasty dance dangerously loving.

“You know,” Donghyuck started, his hands remaining slack in the elder’s as he slowed his movements, “you’re kind of glittery,” Donghyuck swiped a hand over the height of Mark’s cheekbone tentatively, as if to wipe away the wet that continued to rain from above.

“You’re the same,” Mark didn’t swat Donghyuck’s hand from his cheek as the younger rested it against the warm skin for a moment, pulling it back to lay limply at his side. Their right palms remained clasped together.

Donghyuck brightened his face with a grin, his heart shaped smile pulling the apples of his cheeks high against the wet of his eyelashes. “Do I look pretty,” he teased, his voice high pitched in a mock song. Mark almost froze.

“Maybe you do,” Mark replied smoothly with his regained composure and Donghyuck’s expression dropped.

He pulled his hand from where Mark’s slicked palm grasped onto it tightly and batted at the elder’s shoulder, “Quit shitting me.”

They stood in silence for a while; the beating of rain on their back drenched them to the core as they stared away from each other – Donghyuck’s eyes trained to the asphalt, Mark’s toward the tree line. The curdling of Donghyuck’s gut felt similar to the churn of a mixer, painful and unable to be ignored. His hands itched to clench over his stomach, to press onto it in an effort to curb the onslaught of nausea that attacked him

A crack of thunder startled Donghyuck to a jump and he lifted his eyes to the slightly taller. He remained a tangible distance away. Mark flicked his eyes to meet the younger’s gaze. A bright flicker of lightning seemed to illuminate him in a stop motion scene as he appeared once, several feet away, before again, directly in front of Donghyuck’s apprehensive figure. His hands reached up to cup his chin and tilt it in a slant upward toward Mark’s own.

Donghyuck’s chest pounded with pain, his eyes widened with the press of warmth that wrapped his chin and pressed into the small of his back, pushing his body forward until their chests rested against each other.

An overwhelming sense of dizzy knocked into the younger; his head heavy and clouded, stars dancing over the dark of his vision. It was painful, his heart screaming in a burning sensation with the tightening of a fist – maybe the boy’s own who stood before him.

Mark caught the younger’s lips with his, stumbling into him clumsily. Donghyuck stood there, his knees locked and motionless despite the weight that nearly toppled over him. His eyes were wide and hands raised, grasping nothing as they shook slightly. A flush coated his body, cold shocking through him with the pain that clenched his gut. The staccato of his heartbeat rippled into his fingers, feeling the pulsating of blood that coursed rapidly with his anxious heartbeat.

Mark’s lips tasted sweet, like the frosting that coated Donghyuck’s cheek stickily. Cinnamon flitted into Donghyuck’s nose, mixed with the mud that coated the ground below his reactionless body.

It felt like nothing more than a second had passed when the elder pulled away, his hands snatched from the sopping areas they’d been spread across and his eyes flitted away, wide. He muttered a ‘sorry’ as Donghyuck remained still, the thunderous rain tumbling over him and covering him heavily with a weight that felt like volcanic soot.

Mark wasn’t around when Donghyuck’s reverie snapped; the bare spot before him just as darkened and wet as the world that surrounded him.

The sting that burned his eyes melted in a track of wet, blending with the hot rain that felt as if it scolded his skin with each stroke. Donghyuck’s arms shook and he clutched his stomach, his legs quivering with a slight buckle as he approached the darkened beach house and tracked the wet of storm into the front door.

Mark’s arms didn’t wrap around him that night.

vi.

Donghyuck was confused. He woke after a night of fitful sleep, tossed onto his left side and staring out the open curtains of the window. The sun had risen to its height; the rain cleared and trees glistened emerald and jade against the rich dark of bark.

The bed beside him was empty and the house hushed.

He straightened in the bed and set his hands in front of him on the cool sheets. The mattress beside him was straightened; the covers folded neatly until they met where Donghyuck lay, pushed to the foot of the bed. Donghyuck’s small gray duffel remained unpacked disorderly, the gray bag beside it straightened and zipped shut. The brown haired boy fisted his head into his hands.

A sigh tore from his throat, breaking the silence that stole through the house.

“Why would he do that,” the boy mumbled to himself, throwing his back onto the mattress. It released a soft huff of compression. Donghyuck touched his fingers over the soft skin of his bottom lip, pinching it between two dull nails. He could barely remember the soft press of the elder’s mouth, made messy with the rain and instantaneously halted.

Donghyuck was well aware of his own feelings – he had been since the boy had first begun to tuck his nose into the crook of the younger’s neck, his breathing heavying. Every suppressed pulse that quickened had alerted him to the unrequited feelings that seized him, fearing Mark could hear the quickening of his fast beating heart.

Donghyuck wondered if he should’ve allowed the elder to know the real reason –if he should’ve allowed himself to be seen.

The boy stood and ventured toward the windows, pushing the curtains further parted. The leaves bristled gently and Donghyuck knocked his head against the glass gently, the cool calming the thoughts that ran rampant through his head.

Donghyuck wanted to curse the clouds – curse the trees – for pushing him to explore the crazed storm.

He wanted to curse the world for leading him to confusion.

The door opened and Donghyuck jumped, twisting with hope stirring him.

“I thought I heard you awake,” Renjun stood in the crack of the door, his eyebrow quirked at the younger’s teetering swing. Donghyuck deflated slightly.

“I just got up,” he gestured to the mess of sheets that ravaged the bed. Renjun entered slowly, heading for the mattress and perching himself on the end, a small ways away from the boy that stood by the window. Donghyuck still leaned into the cold glass, his fingertips pressed into it.

Renjun trailed his eyes over Donghyuck and he shifted uncomfortably, the probing stare leaving him uncomfortable where he stood awkwardly. Renjun nodded his head in the direction of Donghyuck’s hands.

“You’ll smudge the glass,” Donghyuck snapped his hands to his sides, fidgeting his fingers restlessly.

“Sorry.”

“Is everything okay?” Renjun drew his legs inward, wrapping his hands around the sock clad ankle and pulling his knees to his chest.

Donghyuck considered the question for a moment. He glanced to his shirt, damp and wrinkled from his immediate collapse onto bed the night – or morning – prior. With the unease that bordered on painful in his stomach, and the fog that clouded his mindset, he presumed that no, things were not – and wouldn’t be – okay.

“Everything’s fine,” Donghyuck didn’t add the light shrug he may have had he been truthful. Renjun noticed. He noticed a lot.

“What happened to your clothes,” his fingers lifted to gesture toward the crinkled sleep clothes. His eyes were piercing in curiosity and what felt like distrust.

Donghyuck pondered an answer for a moment, the silence suspicious as Renjun’s brows rose in expectancy. The younger supposed a twisted truth would be appropriate.

“I went out in the rain last night.”

Renjun’s eyebrows knit together, his head tilting before he dropped his knees from where they’d folded into his small chest. “Why’d you do that?”

Donghyuck shrugged, fidgeting as he remained standing an awkward distance from Renjun’s perch, the cold of the window pressed flush against his heated back. Silence filled between the two of them, each staring to the other – Donghyuck’s eyes wavered under the unrelenting gaze of the elder. The brown haired boy slumped away from the cool glass and approached the bed.

“You’re awfully suspicious this morning,” Donghyuck folded his feet below him.

Renjun remained staring to the other who held his hands in his lap. “You’re being awfully suspicious.”

“That’s because I don’t particularly enjoy being interrogated,” Donghyuck tried a smirk, wondering how it came off on his face. His cheeks felt flushed; he felt the scalding heat that ran from the tip of his nose to the height of his cheekbones.

Renjun shrugged and lifted his inquiry of the other as he crossed his arms, though his eyebrow remained arched as he expelled a few side eyed glanced over the other. “Everyone else left to go back to the store, apparently Mark forgot to get something when we went yesterday,” Donghyuck suppressed a flinch with the name, “I stayed back because you hadn’t gotten up yet.”

Donghyuck nodded slightly, scanning his eyes over the wall.

“Did you go in the rain alone?” Donghyuck flicked his eyes toward Renjun and found the boy already assessing him.

“Huh?”

“Did you go in the rain alone – last night?” Renjun elaborated though the younger knew he was aware there was no need to. Donghyuck shook his headed negatively, bringing his index up to bite the nail.

“No, I dragged Mark out with me.”

“Probably why he suggested we change the room assignment every night, right?” Renjun spoke as if he were teasing though his face remained stoic and questioning, “Because you annoyed him into going outside?”

Donghyuck’s eyes were slightly wide as he met Renjun’s, “He suggested we change rooms?”

“Yeah,” Renjun shrugged, turning his head to face straight ahead but keeping his eyes tangled with Donghyuck flickering features, “it makes sense so that Chenle isn’t stuck on the couch the whole time.”

Donghyuck rubbed his eyes with the press of his fingertips. He ignored the squeeze of his chest; it felt as if it were a small strawberry, the press of fork prongs threatening to smash it to mush. Mark had suggested they change rooms because he felt uncomfortable around the younger – because he regretted his actions the night prior.

The younger boy dropped his head into his hands with a groan. He didn’t know why it felt like such a rejection – he hadn’t been the one to initiate anything, nor had he reacted. It wasn’t as if his feelings had come to light. Yet, still, Donghyuck couldn’t help the twisting of bile in his throat as he thought of the elder’s distancing himself, as he thought of the sudden break in the routine they’d grown familiar with.

“It’s only fair to Chenle,” Donghyuck agreed, though his throat was tight, his words rasped and small.

“Donghyuck, what’s going on?” Renjun’s small hand softened over Donghyuck’s bare arm, warm and working to settle comfort over him. It wasn’t cold like Mark’s – it didn’t burn his skin and spring goose pimples upon him like Mark’s.

“Nothing,” Donghyuck whispered, removing his hands from over his face, “there’s nothing going on.”

Donghyuck’s words were almost the truth. There was nothing going on. There was nothing between him and Mark; nothing had come of their kiss – if Donghyuck had it in himself to call it such – and nothing would form with the divide the younger felt Mark implement.

“Why do I feel like that’s the opposite of the truth, Donghyuck?” Renjun deadpanned.

The brown haired boy fell back onto the mattress, his eyes shut. “It’s not.”

The boy beside him shifted and the bed dipped, jostling Donghyuck slightly. A heavy weight pressed over Donghyuck’s stomach and he cracked an eye open, watching the boy rest his head of black hair onto the younger. Renjun lifted his hand and grabbed on Donghyuck’s own, fiddling with the fingers attached there.

“I’m here if you need me, Donghyuck,” Renjun smirked playfully to the boy and Donghyuck felt his gut settle, “we made a deal: your next breakdown you come to me, remember?”

Donghyuck barked a laugh, recalling his words to the younger the night he stumbled, bleeding and frazzled, onto his front porch. He nodded slowly, intertwining his fingers with the Renjun’s calloused and chapped pair. “Next mental breakdown I’ll go to you,” he affirmed and Renjun grinned.

“And then the debt will be repaid.”

“There was no debt, Renjun,” Donghyuck’s brow softened as he tightened his grip over the smaller’s, tugging it up hold to his chest.

“Yes, yes, I’ve learned that,” Renjun rolled his eyes, “I’m not the one getting the life lesson right now. Besides, practice what you preach, right?” the elder quirked a brow with the smirk that twisted his thin lips, “So you should be relying on others, instead of bottling it up,” Renjun retracted his hand from Donghyuck’s to send a flick between his eyebrows. The lighter haired boy slapped at the hand.

Donghyuck settled back onto the bed, his hands still clutched with Renjun’s comforting pair. “I know, I will – I do,” he felt the elder nod over his stomach, strands of hair tickling the strip of skin where Donghyuck’s t-shirt had been rumpled.

“Alright, well, I’m here if you do want to talk more than you have,” Renjun let out a small chuckle, “-not that you’ve kept anything to yourself, of course,” Donghyuck laughed along before he opened his eyes with a grin.

“Of course not,” he winked. Renjun rolled his eyes.

They laid in silence for a while, the hum of electricity curling through the blatantly quiet house. The door swung open further and Donghyuck cracked a tired eye to the entryway.

“You’ve stolen my boyfriend, Hyuck,” Jaemin laughed as he bounded into the room, jumping onto the two forms as they grunted, a rush of air escaping their lungs simultaneously as the heavier boy collapsed onto them. Donghyuck cackled with what little air remained in his lungs.

“He’s a good hand holder.”

“He’s _not_ ,” Jaemin gasped and the two older boys raised their brows at his exasperation. “He always refuses to hold my hands.”

Renjun barked a laugh at the younger and Donghyuck smiled with them, “That’s because you’re obnoxiously clingy,” Jaemin’s leg wrapped over Renjun’s waist to solidify the point, “I hold your hand when you’re not annoying me – which is never.”

“I’m glad that means I’m not annoying you now,” Donghyuck gloated, dodging Jaemin’s jealous hit.

“No, I’ve just grown used to you being annoying. I’ve wanted to throw up the entire time we’ve been in this room together,” Renjun faked a retch and the other two on the bed guffawed with his show. The doorway filled once more.

“Is this a dog pile?” Jisung piped up and Donghyuck groaned, the wait of the two other boys already piled solely onto him.

“No.”

“It sure looks like a dog pile,” Chenle grinned and edged toward the bed before leaping, collapsing onto Donghyuck as he gasped, the breath knocked from his lungs with the added pressure. Jisung soon followed.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Donghyuck grunted, trying to shift the four others off where they crushed. A body slipped onto the bed behind him, a larger hand twisting to play with his hair. Donghyuck’s heart jumped in surprise and he leaned back, closer to the touch to catch sight of its owner. Jeno’s squinted smile of half-moon eyes stared back.

“It looks like they’re a little heavy,” Jeno spoke softly and Donghyuck scowled, dropping his head onto the cushion below him.

“A little,” he groaned out before he lifted his head once more, his neck straining from the exhausting weight of his skull, “Hey, dipsticks, mind getting off?”

Chenle looked to Donghyuck’s struggling figure and sneered with a snigger, “Not particularly, it’s kind of comfortable up here.”

The boy sprawled out, leaning his head closer to Donghyuck’s and spilling his hair into the other’s face as his weight adjusted to place further pressure onto the elder’s stomach. “You all are going to rupture my spleen.”

“That sounds like a real shame,” Jisung pouted, leaning his head back onto Jaemin’s upper arm.

Donghyuck blanched at the other’s sarcasm, “Yes, you dunce, it kind of is.”

Renjun laughed, the others not suffocating him with their weight. “I’m going to have to doubt that we’re capable of doing that.”

“Considering you’re _crushing me_ ,” Donghyuck’s words were accentuated by the breathless tone that followed Jaemin’s shifting over his lower abdomen. “Are you spastic you dimwit? That’s my _bladder_ ,” Donghyuck gasped under Jaemin’s weight, “I _will_ pee myself if you don’t move.”

Jaemin giggled and reached his arm around Renjun, clasping Donghyuck’s bare foot. The elder gasped, working to flail away with the trail of fingers that tickled the pad of his foot. The shouts that erupted from him with the boy’s torturous act sent the other’s collapsing in fits of erratic laughter, pained tears springing to the corners of his eyes with the featherlike touch.

“It’s not your birthday anymore, Donghyuck,” Jeno grinned, poking the skin that peeked from below his wrinkled shirt as the boy squirmed.

The door squeaked and the group stopped, glancing toward the noise. The boy in the entryway stood still, eyes tiredly assessing the pile of limbs that tangled over the mess of sheets. With a tight smile he turned away, disappearing down the hall.

Renjun’s eyes reached Donghyuck’s saddened ones and the boys clambering off, each clad with bright smiles, innocent to the weight of tension that clung over the room.

Mark seemed to sever their friendship with his withdrawal.

Donghyuck slept on the gingham couch that night, Renjun curled up at his feet before the boy himself began to drift off and retired to the pull out bed. Mark continued to avoid Donghyuck.

Donghyuck spent the following week in a haze, experiencing life as it flew past him. The group spent their days on the beach, Donghyuck sitting with his legs crisscrossed and playing with the water that broke onto shore and splashed into him. He found himself gasping in shock with the occasional daze that left him inhaling salt water in a choke that burned his nose.

The boys continued to cook; the four piled into the small kitchen with ingredients in tow. Renjun sat Donghyuck out with the knife that spilled blood onto the wooden cutting board, a small bandage joining the dressing that already lay plastered over a burn.

They’d flown through the past four days aggressively fast and soon Donghyuck found himself huddled beside Jaemin on the fold out bed, a restless night of wakefulness awaiting him before the distant car ride that would fill the entirety of the following day. Renjun and Jeno lay perched over the end of the bed that filled the opposite side of the master bedroom.

Jaemin pointed an accusatory finger at the yawning Donghyuck, “There’s something up with you,” the appendage slid to rest on Renjun’s raised eyebrows, “and you know something about it.”

Renjun lifted a corner of his lip and Donghyuck watched him wearily, appreciating his effort to curb away the suspicion, “Why would you say that?”

“He,” the finger returned to rest at Donghyuck’s chest, “looks like he suffers from iron deficiency or insomnia and every time I bring it up you,” it curved to accuse Renjun once more, “change the topic.”

Donghyuck forced a sneer onto his face, patting the tips of his fingers over the bags that lay under his eyes, “Jeez, insult how I look, why don’t you?”

Jaemin dropped his hand and sighed, turning his eyes to Jeno’s. The boy opposite him offered a soft smile and shrug. Jeno knocked his shoulder into Renjun’s with raised eyebrows and the elder turned to him, returning the gesture.

“It’s not my place to say anything and _I_ ,” Renjun nearly scowled at Jaemin who arched an eyebrow, “don’t happen to enjoy gossiping about our friends.”

Jaemin scoffed and shook his head, “It’s not gossiping when I’m worried about him.”

Donghyuck raised his palms in surrender, glancing agitatedly between the couple. Jeno’s eyes were worried alongside the brown haired boy’s own. “Relax, I’m just not sleeping very well,” Jaemin watched Donghyuck as he tried to settle the strain in the bedroom, “I don’t do very well away from home, you know that. It’s why I’m so nervous for college,” the boy was almost startled by the ease of his fib.

Donghyuck knew he could go anywhere easily if it were in the company of his friends – being away from home had nothing to do with his discomfort of either situation.

Renjun caught the lie with a sigh.

“What about you and Mark?” Donghyuck flinched with Jaemin’s words, his hand flying to his face as he bit the pad of index with discomfort. Jaemin’s head leant to the side as Donghyuck inclined his, eyes avoiding his searching.

Donghyuck stretched the tendon of his neck, letting it crack before relaxing it, “What about me and Mark?” he mused.

“I haven’t seen you two talk to each other this whole week,” Jaemin furthered and Donghyuck shook his head in denial, well aware that what he spoke was true.

“We spent the whole day together at the beach.”

“That was when we first got here,” Jaemin replied, never missing a beat. His eyebrows were raised expectantly.

“Jaemin-,” Renjun warned, his voice tentative as he watched Donghyuck shift uncomfortably.

Jeno added on, “It may not be our business.”

Jaemin shook his head, turning to the others with a sigh that lifted his shoulders, “I’m sorry,” he started softly, “I’m just so tired of feeling like people don’t trust me with things,” he fisted his head in his hands and Donghyuck’s mouth twisted.

“It’s just not something to be shared with everyone,” Donghyuck whispered. Renjun watched him as he tilted his head back. It had been the first time Donghyuck had acknowledged something had upset their friendship –something the boy didn’t want to be revealed.

Donghyuck couldn’t be honest of his emotions with the others – not after he felt like everything was completely splintered with Mark.

Jaemin nodded and it was Jeno who spoke up then, “I assumed it’d just sort of end – be solved by the end of this week, you know?”

Donghyuck nodded softly, his shoulders slouched inward. He felt the tears that had pricked his eyes regularly begin to blur his vision and he swiped at his eyes, working to resist the incessant need to shed the sting.

“I don’t think it’s really something I can solve,” Donghyuck rasped and he felt Jaemin’s arms wrap over him. Jeno approached slowly as Renjun remained seated, watching him with cautious eyes. “I’m fine,” he stated as the two began to knead comfort into him.

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” Jaemin said softly, his hands rubbing over the bare arms of the elder. Donghyuck lifted his shoulders as goosebumps sprung over his with the others’ consolation.

“It’s no big deal,” Donghyuck whispered and the others nodded. Renjun remained watching from afar, assessing Donghyuck’s discomfort of being pawed over.

“I think we should all head to bed,” he spoke up, louder than the others as he checked the time that illuminated his phone screen. Donghyuck watched him as he raised his eyebrows at Jaemin, his face unreadable as the boy pulled away from where he clung to the elder. He shot Donghyuck an apologetic look as he pulled away, no longer smothering the anxious boy.

Donghyuck laid on his back in the dark, his eyes trained to the rough ceiling above him. It seemed to enlarge and breathe in the dim lighting of night, swallowing Donghyuck whole until he suffocated. He worried his finger in the dark. His chest felt heavy despite the dry of his eyes and he sighed quietly, the sheet that had been pulled up to his chin rippling with the stream of air.

Jaemin had twisted to lie on his side, his breathing slow as his back faced Donghyuck. Donghyuck lifted the sheets gently, sliding his feet out soundlessly to drop the short distance to the ground. He set the thin blanket around Jaemin once more and stepped from the room, pulling the door cracked behind him slowly.

Donghyuck reached the end of the hallway, allowing his eyes to trail over the form that lay curled on the couch. He suppressed a sigh, fearing a break in the quietude of the vacation home, and nipped at his nail as he pushed his feet forward. He kept his eyes over the lump, its back facing outward to greet Donghyuck.

He tore his eyes away and shoved the door open, hurrying down the gravel road and into the darkened path of sand that carved through the undergrowth of trees. The tangle of plants tripped Donghyuck as he ventured through the sandy underbrush. The sand that slipped into Donghyuck’s slippers felt cool, its texture almost damp as it clumped against his toes. The grains ground against the pads of his feet before he burst onto the small beach, trees curving around him in the small area.

Donghyuck stood before the shore, the waves crashing black and blue against the silver glow of sand, similar to a bruise over ivory skin. The water lapped at his feet, glistening under the shine of the clear sky and moon. Brine fizzed and bubbled against his shins, the roar of waves hushed under the blanket of night. Donghyuck watched as sea-lace stroked over his skin, soft in its cling before the retracting of tide brought with it the spiny fragment of plant.

The dark of the sea appeared forever stretching; its ripples discernable under the moonlight that fed to it a captured ounce of the sun before it reached the horizon and spilled into the darkened sky, an ocean of its own. The sand was still and unspoiled, Donghyuck’s lone footsteps marring the blank canvas that’d been smoothed by the rise and fall of tide pools.

Donghyuck slipped his hand into the water that licked over his ankles in a soft sting of cold. The ocean breathed before him, keeping a rhythm that echoed the beating of the boy’s own pulse. He cradled the brine, allowing it to spill from the cup of his palm and bead over his bent kneecap. It appeared lonely in its whine, creeping forward in an ever reaching grasp before retreating, repeating a cycle that remained unending in its stretch. Donghyuck felt his own chest reach with longing waves, yearning to grasp what would forever evade his clutches.

A tear slipped from his eye, relaxing into the water that he waded through. The teardrop drew away with the ocean’s crawl over the belly of sand and with it pulled the remaining onslaught of tears from where he’d tucked them away.

The curling fingers of waves sprayed over him in a mist sea spray, masking the trail of tears that unfolded over his skin until it ushered him gently to serenity and calm. Donghyuck settled back onto his heels, ignoring the run of salty tears that mixed with the brackish water over his cheeks, and listened to the whisper of waves, the sound ghastly in its inaudible utter.

The brown haired boy watched the indomitable ocean crash upon the outcrop of rocks, its restless wake pulling away in gurgling black. Its whisper heightened with a hiss and Donghyuck turned his eyes to the brightening horizon.

The sun peaked over the sky in a whisper of yellow.


	3. you are my sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things come to light and to an end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and by end I mean the story :0

vii.

Donghyuck sat in silence, the buzz of muffled speech resounding in his room from the speakers of his phone. It was late, the blinds of his window drawn and the light that filled his room formed solely by the bright screen of the video that played over his cell.

The heat of early July had slicked his skin and now painted it sticky with the sudden emergence into cooling. His hair was slightly greasy from the sweat and he stretched his limbs, lying on his back on the itchy carpet of his bedroom.

Donghyuck yawned, flipping to lie on his side and face the white light that shone onto the near blue wall. It illuminated a small, framed photo that hung from a nail.

It was a photo his eyes had grown commonly familiar with, drawn to its frame to study continuously. He’d received it for his birthday nearly a month prior, the frame still holding a stranger’s bright smile that he’d removed and placed the printed photograph into. It held the unblinking smiles of several boys, draped in black gowns and dressed with grins that rivaled Cheshire cats’. Even with the dark of the room Donghyuck could spot himself, smiling the slightest of each beam. His arms lay slack at his side, his head tilted away from the camera. A frail set of limbs wrapped over his shoulders and around his neck. Donghyuck studied the owner’s smile.

Mark, photographed and captured infinitely frozen and grinning in time, had his mouth agape with silent laughter. His eyes were squinted against the bright sun that painted their faces with light and his head was tilted slightly toward Donghyuck’s own, younger self, though his eyes remained trained over the camera.

Donghyuck wanted to know why he laughed.

A pinch stabbed into the region behind his lungs, each breath made painful, and he sighed. Donghyuck had pondered over the two’s shared kiss regularly, his heart clenching with each conclusion his hopeless, listless mind could draw.

Donghyuck was filled with very little hope.

It had been weeks since the older boy had clambered through Donghyuck’s doorway and rested his arms over the younger. Each night tore through Donghyuck with the reminder of the elder’s absence. He’d lay in bed, sunken into the cushion of his pillow, and reach out, his hands brushing the smooth surface of his sheets to find only the cold. He’d turn over and feel the ghost beside him, grasping his body with phantom weight and breath.

Donghyuck didn’t sleep easy with the ghosts.

Another ghost the boy commonly felt was the flitting of pressure over his lip, sending his knees wary with the thought of the rain that plummeted over him and pummeled his heart with its fists of burden.

Donghyuck wished he knew what would’ve come had he reacted.

A crack of fireworks startled Donghyuck from where he rested on his side, pulling his eyes from where they studied the photograph mounted a ways away. The crackle of noise from outside his window pulled the boy upward, dragging his feet to the pale blinds and pulling them apart to glance through their wide slants.

Red, white and blue colored firework displays exploded in impatience over the velvet sky, blocked slightly by the plush tufts of leaves. Donghyuck turned his eyes to the small clusters of neighbors that bore the heavy weight of late night that slowly trailed into early morning and remained perched over their porches. A few small firecrackers exploded over the driveway that lay diagonal to his home.

Donghyuck was aware of the party that remained bustling a few streets down from where he sat, curled in his house. Jaemin had mentioned it to the elder the week prior with hopes that the other would lessen the clasp of silence that he held willingly. He’d refused. Jaemin had chosen to spend the holiday with Renjun, the eldest of the three refusing the blow out as well.

To Donghyuck, the fireworks that he stared into symbolized his own demons. The bangs that rippled over the sky sent shudders startling over him with a small gasp. Their crusade sent dread through him and deadened his ears, the harsh cracks that wracked the sky fiery and shocking. The vermillion petals that burst in the dark did little to lessen the hatred Donghyuck held for the sharp cut of noise.

Donghyuck drew away and reached for the handle of his bathroom. Without flicking on the lights he grappled for a small, square washcloth, coating it in the cool water that filtered from his tap. Donghyuck dragged the rough texture over his skin, swiping the sweat that marred his brow away.

The distant clap of fireworks continued and Donghyuck jumped once more with the splintering sound that snapped into his window. It wasn’t uncommon for the boy’s ears to fool him, that he’d rush to the window with a sudden hope stirring his gut and fling the blinds away to find… nothing. He’d nearly turned away – to rule it off as mind tricks and firecrackers – when the rapping resumed once more, then repeatedly. The sound was frantic and haphazard, the thuds resounding over the glass panes and hitting the side of his outside wall with a significantly duller knock from poor aim.

He approached the window once more, the cold wash cloth still clutched in his hands. He slipped open the blinds, tugging on the cord hard to quickly send them flying open. Donghyuck’s eyes searched the lawn below, ignoring the bright splash of chaos that bloomed across the purple night. The florets that formed over the sky like the burst of a blown fuse illuminated the green of silken grass below with a pink and blue reflection.

Donghyuck’s eyes skirted to the small patch of grass that lay just before his window, angled tightly against the house beside the holly bush that had become distinctly overgrown with the simmering storm that was summer.

A boy stood in the grass, staring wide-eyed upward.

Donghyuck froze, his brow furrowed and hand shaking slightly over the cord he clenched. He stepped backward, his head tilting until eventually the boy’s form disappeared from view. Donghyuck turned and hurried from his room. He stumbled down the steep steps of the carpeted staircase, landing roughly and slipping on his socks to reach the locked front door.

He slipped the lock open and paused. Donghyuck glanced behind him to the house; the hall was darkened and each bedroom door shut, the television in the room to his right had been clicked off. With a deep breath expelled from his nose, Donghyuck slid the door wide slowly.

The brown haired boy stepped onto his porch, sliding his hands behind him to shut it as he slipped out from the house. He turned his head to the direction the boy had been standing, not seeing him on the sidewalk before him. A pair of glazed eyes stared back.

Mark pointed to Donghyuck’s room with his brows drawn together.

“But you were just up there?” his tone was questioning and slurred as he left his hand to hang in the air before him, gesturing to the window, blinds now left ajar.

“I came down, Mark,” Donghyuck sighed, his chest panging with disheartenment.

“That was awfully fast.”

“You didn’t call.”

Mark shrugged, kicking his feet against the overgrown grass. “I didn’t think you’d pick up.”

Donghyuck furrowed his brows with a sigh, tilting his head back to gaze into the colored sky. He wasn’t sure what to make of Mark’s sudden appearance – of his apparent dejectedness as he mumbled an assumption of the younger’s rejection toward him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“-don’t like me anymore,” Donghyuck’s brow cinched together further.

“I don’t?” he questioned, his tone muddled with confusion as he studied the elder who shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “You stopped talking to _me_ , Mark,” the elder began to shake his head, glancing up to Donghyuck.

Donghyuck noted the pink that coated his complexion, his gaze glazed and unfocused as he bounced on his feet. His hair was mussed and shone with the grease of product that had previously stilted it. He studied Donghyuck in return.

“I- I stopped talking to you because you d-don’t like me,” he rose his shoulders again; a pout muffled his words to a whine.

“Why would you say that?”

Mark shook his head and pressed an index over his lips, a soft shush fleeing them. Donghyuck’s chest tightened as his mind whirled with the boy’s words. Of course Donghyuck liked Mark – in more ways than his best friend could possibly be aware.

“Mark, why’re you here?” Donghyuck tightened his lips to a line with soft exasperation. He felt tired; he hadn’t slept comfortably in just under a month.

Mark shifted before him, swinging his arms forward before stumbling back with the force that accompanied the movement. Donghyuck stepped forward, an arm outstretched as if to catch and steady him even with the vast space that separated the pair. “-‘m drunk, can’t go home,” he shrugged and Donghyuck suppressed a sigh with the repeated action.

“Did you walk here?” a nod, “from where?”

Mark gestured behind him with a thumb, gesticulating as a hitchhiker. Donghyuck’s eyes glanced in the direction, half expecting a bustling party bus to sit, parked beside the curb. Instead the dark trees greeted him in separation from the main neighborhood road.

Donghyuck trailed his eyes over the road, watching the dancing embers of firecrackers and sparklers explode over driveways in the early hours. He could smell the woody burn of an outdoor fireplace waft toward him, drifting from a campfire of potential celebratory marshmallows and graham crackers in the wake of Independence Day. Donghyuck thought he’d quite like to have a bonfire – to sit beside a group of friends in the cooling summer night and watch ash flit through the breeze.

“The party down the street,” Mark yawned, gripping onto his stomach with a pinched expression.

“Do you need water,” Donghyuck eyed Mark’s half hunched form with a wary look. Mark nodded with a small, self-pitying scowl.

“My head’s starting to hurt quite a bit,” he gestured to his temples with a swung hand and wacked himself lightly. Donghyuck sighed and stepped toward the boy’s drunken haze, gripping his wrist and pulling him gently into the house.

Donghyuck wasn’t sure why he wasn’t upset – why the interaction caused him more apprehension laced exasperation than pain. He felt he had a right to be angry. The boy had cut the younger from his life entirely, severed the ties they’d held for over two years, and showed up intoxicated at his doorstep a month later – he should’ve fumed. But Donghyuck felt only sadness. He felt only tiredness.

The two stepped into Donghyuck’s darkened room, the video that played on his phone still filtrated soft utterances into the silence. He flicked on the lights and Mark winced beside him, squinting in the sudden affliction of brightness. He groaned softly.

“Donghyuck, I don’t feel very well,” the younger watched him as he curled forward, clutching the loose of his shirt that billowed over his stomach.

“Do you think you’ll need to throw up?”

Mark shook his head with affirmation and stepped unsteadily forward, his eyes clenched shut with the hum that burst from his throat with the pangs of sick. Donghyuck tentatively gripped onto his elbow.

Mark didn’t get sick – he didn’t drink himself into oblivion. Mark was responsible – as responsible as one who actively drank could be – and never surpassed the limit his body held over alcohol. Donghyuck could clearly see that the elder boy had thrown his prior tentative responsibility to the wind with his liquor consumption in the previous hours.

“Why don’t we get you into the bathroom?” Donghyuck shifted the boy in the direction of his bathroom, leaving the door cracked to allow a stream of light to infiltrate the space as he left the bright incandescent bulbs flicked off. He set him softly onto the cool tile of the bathroom floor, his back groaning with the effort. Mark pushed his head onto the bowl.

Donghyuck stood back from the boy that lay curled over the toilet bowl and rubbed a hand into his eye before he brought it back to bite the nail of his pointer finger. He assessed Mark’s form before stepping around him toward the tub that sat beside his form.

“Let’s get you in the bath, alright?” Donghyuck opened the tap and winced at the roar of its current in the sleeping house. He closed the drain as the temperature increased from its tepid feel. “Why don’t you take everything off – but leave your underwear on, okay?”

Donghyuck didn’t want to invade the little privacy that Mark should be allowed to retain, turning to allow him to strip and telling him to keep the garment that clothed his intimate parts on. Mark didn’t deserve to have his unthinking state of mind taken advantage of – even if it was Donghyuck’s last intention to do more than help clean the grime of party from his form and help ebb away the sick that wracked him.

The swish of water sounded behind him and Donghyuck turned, helping the unsteady boy to settle into the tub fully. The younger grabbed a soft washcloth from the cupboard of his bathroom and sank onto his knees beside the occupied bath, rolling the sleeves of his sweatshirt to the bend of his elbows.

Donghyuck stuck his hand into the hot water, closing the stream off and lifting off his position to grab the body wash that was perched over his shower rack. Donghyuck refused to look at Mark’s stripped form – the pale of his bare skin, a pretty ivory under the dark of the shadowy bathroom. His arms had wrapped around his legs, the thick of his boxer briefs clinging to the skin of his thighs. A shiver wracked Mark’s slack form, his body itching to remove the alcohol from where it settled in a sick in his gut.

Donghyuck wrung the wash cloth into the water and pressed it softly onto the skin of Mark’s clenched arms, warm water dripping over the skin alongside the suds of soap and coating Donghyuck’s palms in a glistening wet alongside the elder’s body. Mark’s upper body glistened with the lather, soapsuds slipping across the similarly colored skin.

The younger glanced up as he finished the side that sat closest to him, leaning over the tub slightly and poised to scrub the opposite side. He found Mark’s eyes already trained over Donghyuck’s features. The silence that clung over them, broken only by the drip of the towel he held and the shift of water surrounding Mark, was deafening.

“Hi,” Donghyuck flattened his lips with the rasp he spoke.

“Hey, Duckie,” Donghyuck tore his eyes away with the familiar name and swished the washcloth through the water once more. He dumped a fresh drip of soap onto the rough surface.

Mark shifted uncomfortably, his spine pressed into the hard ceramic of the tub. Donghyuck felt him continue to search his face. “Duckie, why don’t you talk to me?” the younger cocked a brow.

“I am talking to you,” he mumbled, brushing his hands gingerly over the soft skin alongside the towel in a cycle of hot water and slick hands over skin. Donghyuck could feel the heat of Mark’s breath against the hair that fell into his eyes, the stench of alcohol burning his nose and he suppressed a grimace. He was repressing the urge to glance toward his face, to glance toward the pout that undoubtedly laced his features.

“You don’t talk to me anymore.”

Donghyuck shook his head, steadying himself with a pressing hand against the elder’s deltoid. His skin was hot, the warmth of the bath forcing his body heat to a greater temperature. The younger forced his eyes to lose focus, to blur the silvery glint of the wet milky skin. He felt it was almost a sin – Mark was a high he shouldn’t have.

He was a high Donghyuck hadn’t been given consent to take.

“I’d talk to you if you had told me you’d wanted me to, Mark,” Donghyuck slid the washcloth over his sternum, staring at the golden of his dark hand in the dim light to ignore the soft of the elder. “But you don’t reach out to me either.”

“Because you don’t like me.”

Donghyuck shook his head again, keeping his eyes trained away from the other’s face as he slid further away. He set himself beside the elder’s kneecaps and dunked the towel once more, continuing his cycle of soft touches and warm scrapes of bubbly cloth. “You keep saying that – but I don’t understand what that means.”

“I mean you don’t _like me_.”

Donghyuck sighed in frustration, continuing to scrub lightly against the elder’s shins. “When did I ever show you that?”

“You didn’t react to me.”

Donghyuck halted his movements, his eyes wide as they trained on the back of his foamy hand. He’d never spoken to the boy about what had happened the night of his birthday – he’d never spoken to the boy _since_ what had happened the night of his birthday. Donghyuck breathed shakily through his nose, his chest clenching with the thought of the boy’s words – he was upset Donghyuck had frozen.

The younger tore his eyes upward, clashing his gaze with Mark’s curious eyes. Donghyuck tapped his shoulder gently and the elder dipped into the tub, slipping below the surface to clear away the suds that stuck over his creamy skin. He remained with his chest below the water for a while, the back of his head dampening as it tipped into the soapy bath water.

Donghyuck thought he looked like Ophelia, his hair flowing in the pool of water and his form slack, having just fallen from the branch of a craning willow to rest in the water, eyes shut permanently to favor the release of a forever sleep. He thought he’d just needed to be framed with the waterlilies of ponds, cradled in the grasps of beauty that filled the lake as the curdling darkness of everlasting sleep slipped in.

“Why didn’t you do anything?” Mark continued, a pout playing over his lips. Donghyuck could see with the drunken stupor that stole through him, Mark had become almost numbed to the consequences of his blunt honesty – numbed to the severity of his words and the mixed message they sent through the younger. Donghyuck leant back onto his heels, his mind dizzied with its implications that Mark _cared_. The implications that Mark had kissed him because he had feelings – not because of the accusations Donghyuck’s mind had previously supplied.

“What do you mean?” Donghyuck whispered, his eyes wide.

Mark lifted from below the surface of the water and straightened, his shoulder blades digging into the cold rim of the bathtub. Donghyuck watched his movements carefully as water splashed around him. “I mean this-,” Mark slurred.

The older hoisted himself from the tub, pulling himself up and sending water dripping onto the tiled floor of the bathroom. A wet palm settled onto Donghyuck’s cheeks and his eyebrows drew in deeply. Mark leaned into Donghyuck and once more the scent of cinnamon infiltrated his senses like a hazy drug.

Mark tasted like alcohol, his mouth bitter and hot. The scent of liquor drowned the cinnamon to a dull essence and Donghyuck lightly pulled away, his head spinning with the pressure that pulsed in his lips. His vision danced with stars and he studied Mark, his eyes stinging with disbelief.

“Why do you keep doing that, Mark?” Donghyuck whispered, his fingers lifted to his lips and pressing against them.

The boy collapsed back into the water with a frown, lifting his hands to rub against the goosebumps that had formed over his upper arms. He’d been sitting in the water awhile that it had begun to get cold and his fingers pruned. Mark avoided Donghyuck’s confused stare.

“See? You don’t like me.”

Donghyuck shook his head, a grimace forming over his mouth. “No, that doesn’t mean I don’t like you, Mark,” the boy beside him continued to frown and rub up and down his forearms, “but why do you keep doing that?”

The older boy shrugged; his actions hasty and sloppy with the intoxication. “-just wanna have fun.”

Donghyuck’s chest panged. He felt dizzy with the boy’s words, the realization that his presumptions about the day in the rain had been accurate. He curled fist over the ceramic edge of the tub, his knuckles growing white with the grip. His stomach churned and he straightened quickly, breathing deeply through his nose to curb the unsettling of his gut. He yanked a towel from the closet and opened the plug of the bath, his mind whirring. Mark didn’t like him – Mark never had. Mark just wanted someone to have fun with. Mark just wanted to find someone who’d pay him attention.

Mark just wanted someone to use.

And who better than the person who’d been beside him all along.

Donghyuck gripped the elder’s wrist and hauled him upward, steadying his wobbling gate as he lifted his leg over the bathtub. He slipped the towel over Mark’s wet shoulders and stepped away, tossing a pair of clean, dry clothes onto the sink before shutting the door behind him and separating himself off from the other.

Donghyuck clenched a hand into his hair with the sting of his eyes and let out a frustrated groan, low and quiet. He stepped toward the window and leaned against the wall as he stared to the still colorful skies. The fireworks burned the back of his eyes similarly to the stars that danced there in his dizziness. A loud crash resounded through the house with each blossoming pop of light.

Donghyuck hated fireworks.

The door to the bathroom creaked open and Donghyuck remained pointedly staring out the window, his hands clenched at his sides. The pinch that stole away his breath and lay over him like the crush of weight was unlike nearly any emotion Donghyuck had experienced. The footsteps stopped beside him.

A cool hand tugged the younger’s arm and he clenched his eyes shut before turning to face the boy beside him. Mark stared down at Donghyuck with wide eyes, his hand tugging the limb it held slightly and tightening the grip it maintained over him. Donghyuck’s skin prickled.

Mark lifted his hand from Donghyuck’s arm, feather light touches carving over his skin like a shovel carving away rubble – a spoon scraping through honey. His fingertips flicked over Donghyuck like the brush of a butterfly’s wings; soft and tentative, carving way for a hurricane. He ran his hands upward, from the dip of his hips to the soft of his waist, the covering of his sweatshirt providing little against the burn that trailed Mark’s cold appendages. Mark wrapped his arms closer to the younger with the trace of his fingers around the dip of his lower back, curling them in a blazing line over the curve of his spin. Donghyuck’s stomach fluttered, his breath heaved as Mark’s own chest drew closer to the younger’s. He shivered and tensed, the slow ascent of hands continuing over his shoulder blades. Mark’s hands planted over his shoulders, wrapped under Donghyuck’s arms and curved upward to grasp him in an embrace intimately. The flutter of breath that brushed his cheek was addictive and disarmed him.

Their embrace reminded Donghyuck of the rain that had pelted them a month ago – the dance of lovers that had been framed with the beauty of stars and downpour. He tilted his head upward to the taller’s. Their eyes met with a clash of wavering gazes and blazing tremors – apprehension seizing their joint bodies. It felt scandalous – the proximity of their warmth, the press of their harshly beating hearts to the other’s chest. They shared no words, their eyes not breaking from the other’s with the hopeless anticipation that greeted the two in fits of anxiety filled trembles. The cinnamon that had been previously drowned by alcohol had grown saccharinely sweet, invading Donghyuck’s nose and blistering a heat into his throat.

Hearts racing and breathing rapid, as though succumbing to allow the water to fill their lungs as they failed to stay above the surface, Donghyuck brought his mouth to Mark’s. His breathing sputtered and stopped as he pressed into the elder’s form, his lips moving in a synchronized rhythm as he grew intoxicated with the other. He felt his mind dizzy as he was at sea, his world spinning on each wave of nerves that lit him. He was a puddle, curling at Mark’s feet as the elder clutched onto him tightly, savoring the feel of their perfect fit. Mark was boundless, he felt ethereal in his tender hold over Donghyuck – he was a living euphemism for otherworldly beauty, made to not scare away the younger boy in his simple pursuit. A firework shook Donghyuck away with a jump, his heart pattering.

Donghyuck hated fireworks.

The two were breathless in their separation, Mark pulling Donghyuck close to him once more like the tug of a rope. He played Donghyuck like a prodigy and his music, tugging him to rest beside him on the plush mattress. The elder shifted closer, his heat tantalizing to Donghyuck as he wrapped his hands over the small of his waist. The younger felt himself relax into the familiar embrace, his forehead rested upon the elder’s as their exhalations intermingled before them.

Mark whispered into the dark and Donghyuck tensed, the heat around him growing blistering in the thick of his hoodie. The boy knew even with the elder’s wonted return he’d remain forever unsleeping, his heart still torn.

“-Just wanna have fun.”

A firecracker burst outside.

Donghyuck hated fireworks.

viii.

His throat burned as he lay over his bed in the dark, an old movie playing on his computer from where it sat abandoned on his desk. He reached for the glass of tap water he’d left discarded on his bedside table. The warm liquid crawled down his throat achingly slow, leaving a bitter aftertaste of staleness and worsening the drought he felt chap his throat.

Donghyuck supposed the salted pizza he’d begun to use as a coping mechanism would only worsen the dehydration of his mouth.

ix.

Donghyuck Lee had long since grown used to the late night visits a certain dark haired boy seemed inclined to consistently pay. What he hadn’t grown used to was the dread that began to fill him when he thought of such boy paying another visit – of the new dynamic he was sure he didn’t like. Because he’d long since yearned for a dynamic separate from the two he’d already experienced.

Donghyuck longed to love the boy.

Somewhere; along the shared laughter of sneaky steps and warm cuddles, along the dances in the rain and basks in the sun, along the serious conversation and effortless teasing; Donghyuck had been _screwed_. Donghyuck had fallen in love.

He found himself then, curled over the edge of Renjun’s bed, wearing his heart on his sleeve.

The small room was bare and dull but somehow its unfamiliarity ebbed away the pain that surrounded the bright blues and yellows of his bedroom. Donghyuck watched the black haired boy screw open the window, propping it with a thick textbook he’d forgotten to return the year prior –‘forgotten’ because he’d decided his extent of a senior prank would be to steal from the school before he left. A textbook (that he’d inevitably had to pay for) was a risky enough choice.

“What’s going on, Donghyuck,” the younger quirked his brow.

“Am I not welcome?” he joked but his tone fell flat, meeting the worried stare of Renjun. “It’s nothing much, really,” Donghyuck scrubbed a hand over his face uncertainly, “though I do think I want to talk about it – eventually.”

“I didn’t exactly expect you to take me up on my offer,” Renjun scoffed in almost disbelief, “- of coming to me. Though, it took you long enough to.”

Donghyuck sighed to himself and nodded softly. Renjun wasn’t wrong – Donghyuck hadn’t reached out to any of the others to talk to, to confide in, in a while. They swam in silence, the warmth of the room drowning them to a quiet. Donghyuck knew Renjun was waiting for him to speak – he did that often, wait, because he knew not to pressure the other. That, in itself, to Donghyuck, was pressure enough.

“Mark kissed me.”

Renjun balked, his eyes widening and mouth dropping open in confusion slightly. “I’m sorry?” he retorted, disbelief lacing his tone.

“He kissed me,” Renjun waited some more, his face schooling indifferent once more. Donghyuck continued to the silence, “A few times really.”

“Alright,” Renjun nodded to himself. Donghyuck could see the boy processing his words – could watch the questions formulate in his brow. “And that bothers you? That’s what caused you both to split off?”

Donghyuck shook his head. “No,” he spoke to the roof.

Renjun waited.

“I didn’t not like it,” Donghyuck continued, clenching his eyes shut. “I didn’t like what it _implied_ , I suppose.”

Renjun shifted where he sat perched over the windowsill. “What did it imply?”

Donghyuck shifted to lean against the wall, curling his legs beneath him on the bed. “Mark-,” Donghyuck paused, releasing a heavy breath through his nose, “he doesn’t have the best-,” he stopped again, groaning in frustration. “That’s not even true,” he whispered to himself. He didn’t know how to open up to Renjun, to explain why he saw Mark in a different light than that of the others.

“Donghyuck, just take your time. Tell me what you can – what you want.”

“Mark’s been going to house parties and drinking for a while – he’s no saint. And, I’m not sure how long ago – maybe two years, he came over to my house because he’d been drinking and couldn’t go home,” Donghyuck noted Renjun’s flinch with the mention of alcohol. “So he stayed the night.

“And, I guess eventually, he just never stopped – staying the night, that is.”

Renjun nodded, urging the younger on in silence.

“I guess, it _implied_ that he just wants someone to kiss when he feels-,” Donghyuck mulled over his words with hesitation, unable to fully form a coherent sentence that fit the jumble of emotions in his mind, “like kissing…”

“And that’s not what you want?” Renjun cocked his head, a soft, piteous expression lacing his brows.

“No-,” the window slammed shut, the book flying from where it perched and Renjun wrenched himself away. “You might want to get that fixed.”

“I might,” Renjun snorted, pushing it upward with effort and shoving the book back below.

“Why’s it even broken like that?”

Renjun shrugged, leaning against the wall beside the window, not wanting to shove the pane back down with his weight. “Sneaking out.”

“Huang Renjun sneaks out?”

Renjun snorted, “To a treehouse – exciting I know.”

Donghyuck grinned lazily, watching the small smile curl over the elder’s face. Renjun shrugged as the younger continued to watch him, mirth filled bemusement dancing over his features. “Don’t suppose that’s to see your boyfriend?”

Renjun laughed once more, “Yeah, when we were eleven,” he continued to study Donghyuck’s small beam. “You know, Donghyuck, being with Jaemin wasn’t easy either.”

Donghyuck’s smile dropped and he thumped his head on the wall behind him, “At least he liked you.”

Renjun snorted, dropping onto the mattress beside the brunette. “Sure, he did. But I didn’t think I liked _him_ – or at least I didn’t _understand_ that I did,” Renjun lifted a corner of his lip solemnly. “And I was going through a lot already – I didn’t think I _could_ be with him.”

Donghyuck sighed, shutting his eyes, “I feel miserable – and selfish.”

“Why selfish?”

“I feel like he should be able to have what he wants. And it’s unfair of me… to suddenly- to suddenly have problems being around him,” Donghyuck shrugged with the stutter as he felt Renjun shift beside him, he could almost feel the frown of the boy beside him.

“That’s not fair to _you_. You shouldn’t be expected to hurt yourself for him.”

“It’s never been a problem before now.”

“Hurting yourself for him? Renjun asked in exasperation, his tone weary.

Donghyuck chuckled darkly, “I guess? I mean touching – I’ve always been able to ignore it but… now I just can’t stand to see him.”

“You need to figure out why – for yourself. And I suggest you talk to him about it,” Donghyuck looked to Renjun, greeted by his softly raised eyebrows as he stared back.

“I know why,” he muttered, “and that’s why I can’t tell him.”

Renjun flicked his eyes away, inspecting a spot above him on the ceiling. Donghyuck suppressed the urge to look, too. “Can you tell me why?”

Donghyuck sighed, lifting his hand to bite his index. “I’m scared,” he muttered.

Silence – Renjun was waiting.

“He’s awfully hard not to fall for.”

“And you’re not?”

Donghyuck shrugged, removing his hands to stare at them, fisting them into his lap and pulling at them. “He said so himself. And I’ve never meant anything more than a cuddle buddy and a bed to sleep in to him, anyway.”

“What’d he say?”

Donghyuck flinched, “That he just wanted to have fun.”

Renjun was silent. He wasn’t waiting; Donghyuck could feel it, feel him mull the younger’s words over.

“It’s not fair to him-,” Donghyuck spoke to Renjun’s silence, “I can’t just go to him and tell him I like him – love him, even,” he choked on his words, “that’s not fair. I can’t expect him to somehow change his mind, his feelings, and want to be with me.”

Renjun shook his head, “No, it’s not fair. But that doesn’t mean it’s not fair to you _either_ ,” Donghyuck shifted his eyes to the older. “He _cannot_ use you and expect it to be accepted and okay. You’re not his toy, Donghyuck, and if he doesn’t have feelings for you he shouldn’t be teasing you with actions that say he does before immediately backing it with ‘wanting to have fun’. You’re not the instigator in this, so no, it’s not fair to you more so than it would be to force a relationship and your feelings onto him. He shouldn’t be treating his best friend like this, whether he knows you like him or not.”

Donghyuck sighed, pushing his hand into his forehead. “He can’t have known I like him – it’s not his fault I didn’t stop him.”

“Donghyuck, he practically went against your consent. You need to tell him it’s not okay – whether you say you have feelings for him or not. He shouldn’t be going to you to use for his own satisfaction – intimacy is a two way street and, _personally,_ shouldn’t be sprung onto your best friend.”

The younger groaned softly, falling sideways to rest on the mattress. A small pair of hands scraped into his hair, pressing timidly onto his scalp in comfort. Renjun hummed softly to the curled younger as he frowned. He’d felt the clamping of a fist over his chest as the elder spoke, the pain of his eyes stinging from suppressed tears.

“Why couldn’t it have been you,” he whispered. “I wish I’d fallen in love with you, Renjun.”

The elder hummed, continuing his scratch over Donghyuck’s mussed hair. He worked to relax him into a stupor that did little to ebb away the pain in the chest and the nausea in his stomach.

“I’m not all that great,” he heard a grin in the elder’s tentative voice, cracking an eye open to slant his gaze upward and study Renjun’s face. He glanced wayward, his expression almost forlorn as a weary smile slipped over him. “Lots of unneeded worry here,” he gestured toward himself with his free hand.

“I get that anyway when you show up at my house, bloodied.”

Renjun grunted, “That’s exactly my point. You’d get more of that on the daily.”

Donghyuck rolled his eyes, “Maybe if I hadn’t been about four years late in meeting you.”

“Maybe, I think I’d have found you insufferable though. Besides, Jaemin buys me candy.”

“Jaemin buys _himself_ candy and gives you the scraps,” Donghyuck yawned, curling inward and clenching a fist over his stomach as it twisted, “and I think you’re slightly worse than me.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Donghyuck grinned, flicking the elder.

“Jaemin didn’t know what he had coming. I’m sure there’s so much regret now, just put him out of his misery and date me instead.” Renjun laughed and leaned down, smacking a soft peck on the younger’s forehead. He grimaced as the bangs stuck to him.

“He’s gotten used to it, don’t worry so much for him, Donghyuck,” Renjun winked and the other rolled his eyes before softening his gaze, his mouth flattening into a frown once more.

“The sad part is I’m serious.”

Renjun’s mouth tightened to a line with pity, glancing to the other’s defeated expression. His brows knit together as he released a soft sigh from his nose.

“Donghyuck, you can’t expect yourself to control your emotions. It just happened, and you shouldn’t feel like you have to regret it.”

“But I do, Renjun. I _really regret it_. We won’t ever be together and yet – I love him. And I probably have since I first let him in my bed. And I _hate_ myself for it.” Donghyuck rubbed his eyes, his voice had grown thick with unshed tears but he pushed them away. He swiped whatever slick had laced his lashes.

“We’re only human, Donghyuck. We love imperfectly and flawed. We love what we shouldn’t – _how_ we shouldn’t. We’re filled with doubt, and sometimes even hatred – towards ourselves, those that we love, and the love itself. You can only do things as best you can, and you can’t expect yourself to be capable of more. If that’s not enough for Mark… there’s not much you can do. It’s painful – it’s _heart wrenching_ – but it’s natural.”

Donghyuck felt the disappointment – no, the truth – to Renjun’s words settle in his gut. He felt it like a blade to the throat, and he stopped breathing for a moment. His muscles seized like rigor mortis and he shook in sadness. A single tear left a trail over his cheek.

“We can’t control who Mark loves – just as much as we can’t control who you do,” Renjun whispered, his palm resting over the younger’s face and wiping the tear from below his eyes. “But, eventually, it will be enough. All that you’re capable of providing will be enough for someone – and it’ll be worth it.”

Donghyuck burrowed deeper into the bed, his soft tears swimming in the covers. “But until then?”

“It’ll hurt. But it’s human – love is human in its flaws. But when you find that person, all the pain will be forgotten, I suppose. Or it won’t – but it’ll have been useful and important. It’ll have been worth it.”

“Why couldn’t I have loved you?”

Donghyuck sat at his desk, staring out the window onto the fresh, green lawn of his front yard. The trees curved inward over the jade expanse and covered it in flitting shadows of foliage. The thrum of a lawn mower seeped through the walls as Donghyuck watched its back and forth motion over his lawn.

Mark glanced to the younger’s form in his window, their eyes clashing before Donghyuck ducked away once more.

Mark mowed the entire lawn.

x.

Donghyuck sat at the small island of his kitchen, his bare feet brushing across the cold tile of the floor. The muffin that lay over his plate crumbled slightly as he pinched off a finger full and shoved it into his mouth. He chewed slowly; his eyes trained over the microwave clock adjacent him.

His mother bustled in the early morning light, the occasional beep of the oven lulling Donghyuck slowly from the curling tendrils of exhaustion. He rubbed under his eyes, catching the eyelashes with the tips of his fingers as he dug the pads into the bags there, working to curb away the exhaustion. The kitchen was hot with the warmth of baking.

The saccharine scent of sugary baked goods flitted to Donghyuck and intermingled with a spicy burn of cinnamon. The boy felt his gut churn with the familiar scent – with the newfound taste that ghosted over his tongue in accompaniment of the heady smell. Donghyuck rolled the sweet muffin over his tongue; the sludge it had become was nauseating with the cinnamon that mingled with it.

“It’s been awhile since you’ve snuck anyone in,” Donghyuck’s mother’s tone was questioning though she expressed her phrase as a statement. Donghyuck turned to her with wide eyes and met her expectant gaze. “I’m not an idiot, you know. And you’re not very quiet.”

Donghyuck swallowed the bile that rose in his throat as she pulled a separate batch of goods from the oven.

The cinnamon scent grew overwhelming.

xii.

Sweat, similar to the salty seawater that had pooled over his skin in the month prior, beaded over his skin, dripping to the asphalt below. Jeno laid, his eyes shut against the blisteringly bright and pale sun, beside Donghyuck’s lax form. The younger’s hands indented painfully with the spare rocks that lay upturned from the paving.

The hard surface of their basketball rested against Donghyuck’s lower back, supporting him from falling to lay completely supine on the black asphalt. It rolled slightly under Donghyuck’s pressure, lowering his posture to be almost uncomfortable.

Donghyuck continued to glance toward the small gate they’d left ajar, waiting for further company to join their gathering of simply two. He swiped at his brow and shoved harshly on his palms, leaning his elbows to rest against his knees where he sat crisscrossed and reaching behind him to prevent the ball from rolling away from the pair.

“Another round?” Donghyuck offered, slanting his eyes to Jeno’s similarly glistening form.

“You don’t want to wait for the others?” Jeno’s eyes remained squeezed shut as he lifted his forearm to rest against his brow, blocking the light further from infiltrating his vision painfully.

“We might as well just keep playing until then. It’s boring to just sit here.”

Jeno squinted his eyes to Donghyuck, giving him a suspicious side long glance. “Aren’t you the one who sits in his yard for hours on end doing nothing?” Donghyuck furrowed his brow with frustration, “Besides, you’re the last person I’d think would want to continue doing exercise – aren’t you exhausted? It’s hot.”

Donghyuck scoffed mockingly, pushing his shoulder into Jeno’s bare one, his sleeves rolled to transform the shirt into a tank top. “Are you calling me lazy?” Jeno nudged him back.

“That may be exactly what I’m doing.”

Donghyuck shrugged, schooling his expression into a frown and grabbing his phone from where he’d set it. He clicked it on and glanced to the blank screen, notifications empty as he pretended to study it. “I have to go in a minute, though, so that’s why I wanted to play.”

“Because Mark’s coming,” Jeno replied without missing a beat.

Donghyuck startled, glancing to the older boy and then shifting his eyes back to the open gate. “I-.”

“You can’t really deny it anyway, Donghyuck,” Jeno lifted his shoulders and drew his brow together. “I was there when you told Jaemin and Renjun about the whole ‘you two having problems’ a month or however long ago,” Jeno raised his hands in quotations, “and it’s fairly obvious when you leave as soon as he shows up somewhere.”

Donghyuck sighed, shifting his eyes to the trees that lay adjacent to them on the opposite side of the fence. They were a deep green with the summer heat, seeming wilted with exhaustion. Donghyuck wondered if he looked similarly so – exhausted with the heat that seemed more so impending and suffocating than any time prior. He wondered if he looked exhausted with the lack of sleep that marred his lonely nights, a dreaded ringtone resounding as he left it to cut itself off.

Mark never left voicemails.

“Chenle and Jisung asked me about it the other day, too,” Donghyuck glanced to Jeno, quirking an eyebrow.

“What’d you say?”

“I just said I wasn’t sure,” Jeno watched as Donghyuck relaxed once more, his lips twisting to the side. “Donghyuck, what is going on?”

He shrugged and then laughed. The sound was dry and sarcastic as he rolled his eyes, shaking his head to himself, “The beauty of unrequited love, I suppose.”

Jeno furrowed his brow, pushing his head further away to study Donghyuck’s sickly expression. “What do you mean – unrequited love? What happened with you two?”

Donghyuck shook his head, rolling his eyes slightly with a dismissal of the topic, “Nothing serious, it’ll be fine. I just don’t really want to be around him anytime soon. It’s uncomfortable, I guess.” Jeno continued to study him.

A soft breeze tussled Donghyuck’s bangs and he tipped his head back, basking in the caress of the wind against his sweat slickened skin. The air smelled heady with suntan lotion and grass. The tension that cut between them was uncomfortable as Jeno watched him, like bitter tangerine stinging the tongue and sending the nose into a pinch.

Donghyuck wondered what Jeno thought of him – what all his friends felt. Maybe they assumed him cowardice and sulking – fearing moving away, fearing talking about his emotions, and fearing confronting what he knew and felt was wrong.

Fearing standing up for himself.

Jeno cleared his throat and Donghyuck wondered if maybe he’d get his answer. “I-,” the gate creaked as it was pushed further open and footsteps pounded behind them. Jeno didn’t continue.

A set of knees pushed into Donghyuck’s shoulders, shoving him slightly forward and he tore his eyes away from Jeno’s. He glared up to Renjun as the elder grinned nastily. “You two seem awfully lazy just sitting here doing nothing.”

Donghyuck pouted, “I suggested we continue playing but Jeno called me lazy.”

“Jeno called you lazy and so you _continued_ to sit and do nothing? Shouldn’t him calling you lazy make you get up and do something?” Renjun prodded, bumping his knees harder onto Donghyuck’s back as if urging him to stand.

“No, I decided to conform to the status quo since you all think so low of me,” Donghyuck shrugged, handing the ball off to the boy who stood above him as he made grabbing motions towards it.

“You just needed an excuse to do so little, couldn’t have anyone thinking you actually _wanted_ to sit and do nothing,” Jaemin piped in from further on the court, his hands held before him as if he suggested Renjun send the ball in his direction. Renjun did just that.

“Is all you do belittle me?” Donghyuck whined, tipping his head back before lifting himself off where he slouched.

Jeno laughed from beside him, nodding. “Seems about right to me.”

Donghyuck laughed before immediately sobering up as his eyes flicked to the pair that had already perched on him. Mark stood beside the open gate, his hands grasping each other as he seemed to cower inward. Donghyuck frowned before turning back to the group that bounded over the outdoor basketball court. He met Renjun’s searching gaze.

“Well I have to head out anyway,” he lifted a thumb to thrust it toward the sidewalk. Renjun frowned and Donghyuck watched his chest heave a silent sigh.

“Now?” Chenle piped in, taking his eyes off where Jaemin gripped the ball to glance over Donghyuck who shrugged. “We just all got here.”

Donghyuck snorted, “You were technically late,” he mused, quirking an eyebrow sarcastically as he ignored the guilty pang in his gut.

“Alright,” Renjun said with a saddened smile. He lifted his hand in a wave, “See you then?”

Donghyuck nodded, flicking his eyes over the boys that stared to him. He ignored the burn of Mark’s stare that pounded the back of his head and offered a tight lipped grin. “I’ll see you.”

Donghyuck stepped backward before turning. He kept his head low as he hurried away, dodging the familiar hand that stretched his direction as if to grab him and yank him back – to force him to stay. Donghyuck ignored the hushed voice of Chenle as he rushed around the fence and back toward the direction of his parked car, the words he spoke sending a stabbing pain of sadness through his chest.

“Do you think he doesn’t want to be around us anymore – now that he’s moving and doesn’t have to?”

The clock ticked further and further into the morning, hours unfolding on the small digital time that read over his phone. Donghyuck’s eyelids were heavy as he lay sprawled over his bed, his hands smoothing the wrinkles that crumpled his sheets.

Donghyuck didn’t how much time had slipped away since he’d clicked off the lights – since the first ring of his cellphone had broken the silence like a siren’s call, painfully addicting as it was dangerous with the itch he felt to reach out and respond. The windows had grown darker with the expanse of night. Donghyuck’s mattress felt near wooden as he shifted, the comfort dissipating with the position he’d held.

Donghyuck sat up, rubbing his eyes with a sigh and sniffling softly in the quietude. It was cool in the house, the air conditioning blasting over them and enveloping him in its buzz as he rubbed his arms from where they were free of his blanket.

The boy with mousy brown hair yawned, the actions wracking his body in a soft tremble as the fatigue of countless sleepless nights enraptured him and pulled him down. Even with the fatigue that didn’t seem to want to subside, he couldn’t get himself to fall from consciousness. Donghyuck straightened his back and winced at the painful pop that pinched between his shoulder blades.

His phone lit up and painted the thin sheet of his bedding in a small square of white and a soft _ding_ resounded through the bedroom.

Donghyuck gently lifted his sheet and balked at the message that sat over his home screen.

_Let me in._

He opened his messages and continued to stare at the sentence, surrounded by a gray bubble and with no further explanation. His lips drew downward into a scowl before he clicked the phone shut, tossing it back onto his mattress. It lit up once more and he snatched it up, flipping the screen to face downward without reading the small notification. He fell back onto the bed with a groan.

A soft knock marred the rigid silence of the small two story home – quiet enough so as not to disturb the sleeping family but drastic and clear to Donghyuck.

Donghyuck jumped and stared to his shut bedroom door, half expecting it to burst open any minute half expecting it all the be a sleep deprived hallucination. The knock returned and Donghyuck sat up with worry toward the sleeping house.

Donghyuck swung the front door open with an expectant stare, a frown plastered thickly and unattractively over his mouth. Mark’s head of black hair lay disheveled as he stared down to his feet. Donghyuck watched him shift uncomfortably.

He wore a pair of runners; the shoes laced messily with little care, one sock slipped from the back of his heel; and his sweatpants sat low on his hips. He appeared messy and unkempt with little care to his appearance as he fumbled to gather himself in front of Donghyuck. The younger sighed softly, almost silently, as he watched him.

“Will you let me in?” Mark whispered, his eyes still trained on the scuffed pair of shoes he wore.

“What for?”

Mark looked up at Donghyuck’s tired tone, his eyes flitting rapidly between the younger’s as if frantically searching for an answer there. “I- I don’t know. My parents have been upsetting me because I’ve been there so much more often – I don’t know – I just need a place to stay. I just – you’re the only place I can really go to and I- I don’t entirely know what’s going on between us right now but-,” he took a shaky breath and wrenched his gaze away, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. “You told me you’d let me stay if anything… y’know… and- I _need_ it right now, _please_. Donghyuck, I have nowhere else to go except to you.”

Donghyuck pinched his lips into a tight line and stepped away from the door, leaving it hanging ajar as he turned back toward the staircase. It began to swing closed with a creak before a soft pair of footsteps padded onto the hardwood and smoothly clicked the door shut in near silence. Donghyuck bounded up the steps once more, his ear searching for sound to follow him. Mark’s familiar heavy breathing filled the house as he slowly ascended the staircase.

Donghyuck stepped into his room and released a shuddering breath, his stomach tensing as he turned to glance over Mark’s form. The boy stood timidly in the middle of the space, his hands clenching tensely as Donghyuck followed his eyes to the bed.

“What did you parents say?” Donghyuck asked tersely. Mark jumped as if not expecting to be acknowledged. Donghyuck supposed he probably hadn’t – he’d spent week’s ignoring the elder since the previous time he’d slept in his bed.

Mark shrugged, swallowing harshly, “Just kept asking why I was suddenly staying there and not spending my nights out like normal.”

“Why is it a problem for them to ask?” Donghyuck muttered, cracking his neck as he slumped against the edge of his desk.

“I don’t know – hurts.”

Donghyuck scoffed, shaking his head, “Oh, I’m sure.”

“What does that mean?” Mark whispered, his voice rasping as he met the younger’s gaze. Donghyuck arched a brow. He schooled his expression into one of apathy as his chest tightened. He felt bile rise in his throat and he resisted the urge to clear it – to break the sudden silence that smothered them uncomfortably. Tension spread over them and caressed the bone of the pair’s cheeks, evenly coating across them with a tangible feel. Donghyuck could hear his blood roar through his ears with the heat of Mark’s stare.

“Why should it hurt?” Donghyuck found himself whispering and winced at the fragility of his voice. The silence that followed was almost palpable between them – to Donghyuck, almost deafening. Mark shrugged and flicked his eyes to the ground.

“Why shouldn’t it hurt me?”

Donghyuck released a breath through his nose harshly, shaking his head before tipping it back with shut eyes. “God, you’re so back and forth.”

Donghyuck watched Mark shake his head, “I can’t be affected by not seeing you?”

“No!” Donghyuck near shouted but hissed as he realized the sleep that hung over the house – the quiet they’d succumbed to. “No, you can’t. Not when you say the things you’ve said.”

“I don’t understand, Donghyuck.”

“You cannot expect me to believe that you’re affected by this – by not seeing _me_ – when all you want is ‘fun’,” Donghyuck snarled, his hands whipping up to brandish quotations with his remark. His words were biting and venomous, slashing across Mark in a whip of fury and forcing him back with a wince. “I can’t believe that that _hurts_ you.”

“I don’t want that,” Mark mumbled, gripping his hands and staring to the carpeted floor.

“I don’t think you know what you want, Mark,” Donghyuck whispered, his voice still brisk.

“I do, I- I want this,” Mark gestured his hand toward Donghyuck and swung it to the bedframe. His eyes were timid and his forehead scrunched pleadingly. Donghyuck thought he looked innocent, childlike in his mannerisms as if scolded by a parent. He was shaking slightly, his face pained and his body slumped, defeated.

“You really are back and forth, Mark,” Donghyuck sighed, scrubbing his fist into his eyes. He felt unbelievably tired, like the weight of every past night had suddenly tugged over him like the flip of a canoe, trapping him to breathe the borrowed air in its belly before he was left to drown. “I _can’t_ do this – I won’t.”

Mark took a step forward and Donghyuck watched him tentatively, remaining unmoving beside his desk.

“Why don’t you want this?” Mark whispered and Donghyuck felt it like a fist. His gut churned and he stumbled forward slightly with the sudden wave of nausea that shrouded him. He felt dizzy; breathing deeply through his nose to calm the sudden onslaught of pain that wracked his body and clenched his chest. Donghyuck nearly choked on his words.

“I can’t just have nothing with you,” he whispered. He felt tears spring to his eyes and he forced himself to remain unmoving, to resist the urge to swipe at them and make it clear that he was crying. His shoulders slumped further forward.

Mark gripped a hand on Donghyuck’s wrist and he flinched away, wrenching his hand back to his side.

“Please don’t touch me,” his voice was a croak.

“Donghyuck,” Mark’s voice was soft and Donghyuck looked to him, his mouth twisted with a grimace. Mark timidly touched Donghyuck’s hand in a soft brush, his knuckles knocking against Donghyuck’s own. “ _Please_.”

“Please _what_?” Donghyuck rasped. His voice was heavy and pained, the emotions bearing down on him and wearing him to the core.

Mark seemed to mull over his words for a moment before swallowing hard, “Be with me.”

Donghyuck flinched away, cradling his hands to his chest as if to curb the pain that shocked there. His body was filled with nervous tremors of nausea and anxiety and his head felt hot with confrontation. He felt a painful tingle in him – in the crook of his elbow, in the nape of his neck, and in the rough of his knuckles.

“I _can’t_ – not in that way, not in the way you want,” he whispered, his voice defeated and wary. His eyes felt heavy with fatigue and suppressed emotion as they stung with tears salty as sea brine. He clenched them shut.

“Donghyuck, I don’t know what way you’re talking about,” Mark stepped closer still.

“I need you to leave,” Donghyuck felt a tear trail slowly down his cheek, blatant and clear in the shine of moonlight that glistened off it in the darkened bedroom. Mark swiped it away with a thumb and left his hand to remain tracing the curve of the younger’s cheek. Donghyuck felt his skin burn with the touch, a flush coating his body and filling his head with an undeniable heaviness that nearly pulled him away in a stumble. Mark wrapped his arm around the younger’s waist.

He smelled familiarly of cinnamon as he held Donghyuck, the clean scent of linen intermingling with the spice as Donghyuck clenched his eyes shut and remained rigid against his hold. He was sweet, like honeysuckle and sugary lattes, as he enraptured Donghyuck. A soft touch smoothed the back of Donghyuck’s head. His shoulders shook with sobs as his cheeks stained wet and a coating of salty liquid slipped amongst his lips.

His hold was warm, like the patch of sun Donghyuck associated him with. Donghyuck’s knees buckled as he shook and the pair dropped down, crumpling onto the floor in a constant embrace. Donghyuck felt weak – Mark seemed to easily remove Donghyuck’s confidence, his rationality. He hated that he made him so much weaker.

“Please,” Donghyuck rasped, “leave.”

The hands around him tightened and Donghyuck winced before Mark pulled back. His palms remained resting over Donghyuck’s shoulders as he pulled away. Something in his gaze had changed; softened to an undeniable sadness. Donghyuck’s heart clenched and he yearned to grapple at it – to feel its tangible shatter.

Mark rested his forehead against Donghyuck’s, the tips of their noses stroking against one another as their breaths clashed in a fury of rapid inhales and shaking exhales.

“Let me stay the night.”

Donghyuck clenched his eyes shut, a tear breaking free to begin its lonely track down his skin. Their breathing whispered a lullaby into the lonely night silence and Donghyuck’s voice began its painful serenade as he spoke simply.

“No.”

xiii.

Mark gripped onto Donghyuck, pulling him into his chest in a crushing hold. Donghyuck tried to tug away, pushing roughly off the elder’s shoulders, before Mark tucked his head into Donghyuck’s chest. Donghyuck went slack.

With the shake of Mark’s shoulders Donghyuck rested his hands on the flat of his back, coaxing him with a lazily stroking palm as he tipped his head back and stared at the blurring ceiling, his own tears rapidly glazing over his reddened face. Mark’s breath was heavy against Donghyuck’s neck.

“I’m sorry. I- I don’t understand,” Mark whispered his voice wavering with emotion and heavy with the wet of his tears.

“I need you to leave, Mark,” Donghyuck whispered, his eyes clenched shut in pain. Mark pulled back and Donghyuck felt a sickening tightness in his chest. He raked his nails against the bare of his legs, willing to focus on the pain there instead of the gripping fist over his heart.

Mark grabbed his hands into his fists and clutched them tightly, “Don’t do that.”

Donghyuck cocked his head. His skin felt taut over his face with the tears and he breathed deeply to calm the racing of his pulse.

“Don’t push me away again, _please_.”

“I can’t give you what you want, Mark,” Donghyuck whispered, his eyes closing in pain. Mark removed a palm from his to rest against his cheek, urging him to open them once more. “Not when it’s at my expense. You can’t ask me to do that.”

Mark shook his head, “I don’t think you know what I want,” he whispered, his hand remained against his jaw.

Donghyuck shook his head rapidly and opened his eyes to stare into Mark’s dark pair, “Then tell me,” his voice was filled with tears and he winced to himself. “Because you haven’t done a very good job at portraying that so far.”

Mark rested his forehead back against the younger’s. He looped his hand to the nape of Donghyuck’s neck and fiddled with the hair there, pulling him closer. Their mouths were a mere breadth apart as he spoke, his lips brushing softly against Donghyuck’s with the formation of his words.

The warmth of the elder’s hand against Donghyuck skin was tantalizing and teasing, sending his mind in a flurry as he tried to clear it. Mark’s breath ghosted over his mouth as he spoke and Donghyuck winced with their proximity.

Or maybe they weren’t close enough.

Donghyuck shook his head against Mark’s clearing his thoughts to focus on the other’s words.

Donghyuck’s body ached from where his legs tangled with Mark’s on the floor in a heap. He couldn’t bring himself to mind their compromising position – to pull away from the intoxicating smell of cinnamon and spice, of sweet drinks and dryer sheets. His bottom lip quivered with the oncoming wave of emotion that creeped over him, the splinters in his chest pushing further into the muscle.

He felt like collapsing in on himself; falling to lie on the floor and shutting his eyes to the sleep that easily accompanied the warm body grasping him.

“I want you.”

Mark’s skin was warm as Donghyuck clutched his forearms where they rested, outstretched and cupping his neck. Donghyuck leaned back into the grip; his eyes clenched shut in pain. It almost burnt to touch.

“You can’t just say that,” Donghyuck whispered. “Not if you don’t mean it. It _hurts_ me.”

“Not if I don’t mean it?”

Donghyuck inhaled sharply in affirmation and he felt Mark sigh against his mouth. Donghyuck tried to pull back but Mark’s grip tightened.

“I want all of you, Donghyuck,” Donghyuck flinched with the words and Mark felt him, crushing his forehead harder still onto the younger to bring him impossibly closer. “Why can’t you believe that?”

“You said it yourself you only want fun,” Donghyuck whispered, the tears a constant stain over his face.

“I was _drunk_ ,” Mark traced his fingers in the younger’s hair, “and I only said it because I assumed it was what you wanted.”

Donghyuck shook his head harshly, trying to pull back roughly. “Why would _I_ want that?”

“Why’re you making me out to be the bad guy, Donghyuck?” Mark’s voice was raised from a whisper as he spoke with exasperation. He let Donghyuck pull back, dropping his head into his hands. The air between them turned cool with tension at their newfound distance.

“I’m not-.”

“You _are_ ,” Mark whispered, his own voice deep with heaviness. “You forget that I kissed you and you did _nothing_. And then proceeded to not explain _why_ and just ignored me. And when it happened again, you started avoiding me like the plague,” Mark sighed. “I get it – I really do. You were hurt by what I said but why did you avoid me after your birthday? And why are you doing it again _right now_?”

Donghyuck shook his head, pushing further away with hurt. “I _never_ avoided you after my birthday. That was _you. You_ suggested we switch rooms and _you_ stopped talking to me. Don’t throw this back on _me_ ,” Donghyuck thrusted a hand into his chest.

Mark balked, his voice grew louder as he spoke, “I was _hurt_ , Donghyuck, and rightfully so. I kissed you and you did _nothing_.”

“I was _confused_ ,” Donghyuck’s own voice was raised in exasperation as he thrust his arms into the air. The tears that streamed over him slicked his neck as he swiped rapidly at them in anger. “You _cannot_ expect me to have understood what the _hell_ was going on after you left me in the rain.”

Mark sighed, defeat lacing his shoulders as they slumped forward and he wrapped his arms over his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, resting his head against his kneecaps.

“I know.”

Mark tipped his head back and Donghyuck watched his eyes flick over the ceiling and rest on the water stain there. “But why are you avoiding me now?” Mark whispered.

There was something deep in Donghyuck’s chest, licking over his heart like the flicker of a flame and burning there. He swiped at his eyes and studied Mark’s form. His eyes glistened with the dark as he remained turned away, moonlight dancing there from between the blinds of his window. His hair was rumpled and he seemws almost sweaty with the pain that laced the two similarly. Donghyuck sighed, resting his own forehead against the heel of his palm.

“Because you’ll just hurt me.”

“I don’t mean to,” Mark whispered back, a soft sob warping the end of his sentence as he choked himself off and slammed his eyes shut.

Silence greeted the ends of his words and Donghyuck fell back onto the carpet, covering his leaking eyes with his hands and clenching the tips of his fingers in his curled bangs. Donghyuck breathed deeply through cracks of his appendages, willing the swirling of his gut away. Donghyuck couldn’t accept Mark – he couldn’t be with him.

Because Mark didn’t know that Donghyuck was only the hostel until there was some place better to stay.

“Donghyuck, _please_ ,” Mark’s voice was broken and Donghyuck felt it resonate through him. He trembled where he lay as a soft hand rested on the curve of his calf. “Please, trust me.”

“With what, Mark? It’ll be okay,” Donghyuck whispered back, his hands still resting over his eyes, “you’ll be fine.”

“Trust me with _you_ , Donghyuck. I won’t be fine; I’ve tried for nearly the past two months. I can’t… _be_ without you. Tell me to screw off, tell me you can’t love me like I do you, “ Donghyuck startled, his eyes wide and brow furrowed behind his palms, “ – that’s fine, but I can’t be _without_ you. I need you in my life,” he drew in a shaky breath. “I can be just your friend and I can stop coming over – but I need you in there somewhere,” his voice had lowered to a whisper, audible only in the distance between the two. “I’ve _tried_ – oh, if you think I haven’t _tried_. I can’t- strangers and the others – they’re not like you. You’re like… _God_ , you’re like my sun, Donghyuck.”

“You think-,” Mark cut Donghyuck off as he predicted his next words.

“Strangers and sunshine, Donghyuck,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair, “they don’t compare to how bright you shine. You mean everything to me and- and they can’t replace that,” he stuttered nervously. “No one can ever replace you, Donghyuck. Because, yeah, I think you’re like the sun to me. And, _God_ , if that’s not mortifying to say out loud.”

Donghyuck scoffed. “How charming,” he mumbled.

“Donghyuck, I want to love you until you’re the only name I know.”

“Do you-,” Donghyuck swallowed, sitting upright quickly and pulling his hands from his face, “Do you think you love me already?” he whispered.

Mark closed his eyes, his face flushing with nerves. Donghyuck thought he looked pretty; the moonlight spilling over him in a silver glow and forcing the blush on his cheeks to grow luminescent. “I don’t know. Yeah, I think so but- I- I don’t know, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck nodded, fisting his hands into his lap and studying them. He bit onto his index finger.

“Donghyuck,” he looked up, “what are you thinking? Please.”

He shrugged. His tears had stopped but his eyes were heavy; bloodshot and puffy from the stain of salt. “I’m scared.”

“I can’t lose you,” Mark uttered in response, his eyes searching Donghyuck’s painfully.

“You won’t.”

Mark shoulders slumped in relief, his forehead creasing with a relieved furrow of his brows. He sighed softly. “That’s all I need.”

“But not all you want?” Donghyuck studied him with an equally harsh scrutiny.

“No, but not-.”

“Well, what is it you want – other than me in your life?”

Mark deflated with self-consciousness, his eyes scampering away. Donghyuck watched as he froze, his eyes wide and searching the room for an excuse like a deer caught in headlights. He crumpled under Donghyuck’s gaze, “To have you in my life as… more,” his tone came out questioning to himself.

Donghyuck’s stomach burned and he felt the heat rise to his throat. He cleared his throat to speak.

“But why?”

“I like you. Donghyuck, I practically said I was in _love_ with you. What other reasoning do I need that would make more sense than that?”

Donghyuck winced, a nervous laugh breaking free. “But why now?”

Mark shrugged, his eyes sad, “Why not?”

“I’m leaving – and it seems awfully sudden of a confession.”

“It’s been two months coming.”

“But even _then_ – why kiss me then?”

Mark continued to shrug. Donghyuck felt he was making light of something that bore rather heavily over him. He was coping by ignoring its significance. “I don’t really have an answer for that. It was just… instinctual to.”

Mark’s gaze was tentative as he maneuvered closer to Donghyuck. Donghyuck’s heart chased after him, in a haste of blind affection and childlike fear. He felt like he was stumbling through the dark, grappling for something to cling to and ground himself. Mark’s arms seemed to suffice.

Donghyuck felt his body was ablaze, burning with a fire that Mark seemed to fan and feed. He’d watched it grow until it began to whimper without his constant embrace and Donghyuck felt it soar with his return. It was inevitable and unavoidable. It was filled with a passion of youth and innocence, cradled in the arms of friendship and fed by the love he felt.

And Donghyuck wanted to let it burn.

Donghyuck wanted to watch it smolder in a fury that sent his walls cascading in crumble of ash and soot.

Mark’s mouth was cold against Donghyuck’s, the chapped skin of their lips scraping against each other’s. Their mouths slot together like a jigsaw puzzle, two pieces carved to form a perfect fit of beauty. Together they painted a picture that was shattered when they were apart.

Cinnamon infiltrated Donghyuck’s senses and he breathed deeply, tightening his grip over the elder and crushing him closer to his chest.

“Stay the night?” he whispered against Mark’s lips, his teeth knocking against the other’s in a clash as he spoke. Mark nodded, his nose knocking alongside Donghyuck’s with the action.

In the darkness of the room the world seems to breathe easy; its sigh audible with the comfort of the two’s connection. Donghyuck felt his heart blooming with warmth, the tightening transforming into an embrace of comforting caresses and tender presses of fingertips. He felt his body fill with the warmth of a sunrise, the boy that held him just as tightly as he grasped the other smiling against his mouth just as the grass smiled toward the sun.

The pair collapsed onto the bed, arms encircled and legs interlocked, as waves of exhaustion spilled over them and pulled them under with its current. Donghyuck tucked his head below Mark’s chin, feeling the heaviness of his arm drape over his waist.

“Goodnight,” Donghyuck whispered, his eyes sliding shut and sleep pulling him away before he could hear the other’s response.

“Goodnight, sunshine.”

xiv.

Donghyuck Lee had long since grown used to the late night visits a certain dark haired boy seemed inclined to consistent pay. He’d sneak the elder in, nestle himself into bed, and await the lanky arms that would wrap around his waist and the hot breath that would swirl over the nape of his neck, goosebumps rising over the flesh. He’d wake the following morning, swathed in the warmth of sunrise and cradled limbs, and he’d grin toward the eyelashes that brushed the elder’s ivory skin.

Donghyuck would cherish the warmth that stirred his gut and stroked the rapidly beating muscle of his chest and he’d wait for the rising sun to burn the boy awake. And then every August he would pack – he’d set a picture frame of beloved smiles and unforgettable friendship into a box and rest his hands softly over the arms that looped loosely over him.

And then… Donghyuck would leave; a bright grin over his face and a fear of nothing except letting life pass him by without living it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i started editing this part way to late and now i'm sleepy and need to go to bed (-_-) zzZ
> 
> i hope it was okayyy (insert me being shy),,,
> 
> much love <3 thank you if you got this far hehe


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